' 

TCALFE 


HER 


GIFT   OF 
Class   of  1887 


SIDE   SHOW  STUDIES 


SIDE  SHOW 
STUDIES 


BY 

FRANCIS  METCALFE 


ILLUSTRATED  WITH  MANY  AMUSING  DRAWINGS 
BT  OLIVER  HERFORD 


NEW  YORK 

THE  OUTING  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
1906 


Copyright,  1905  and  1906,  by 
THE  OUTING  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

First  impression,  March,  1906 


THE  OUTING  PRESS 
DEPOSIT,   N.   Y. 


CONTENTS 

PACE 

THE    LIBERTY    OF    FRANZ    AND    THE    REBELLION    OF 
FUZZY   WUZZY 1 

THE    BITE    OF   A    RATTLER    AND    THE    SAD    FATE    OF 

Bio  PETE          . 23 

THE  AMOROUS  BABOON 45 

FEEDING  THE  SERPENTS   AND  A   GRAND  TRANSFORMA 
TION  C7 

THE  LIONESS   SKIRT  DANCE  AND  THE  INCONSIDERATE 
PYTHON     .        . 89 

THE   ANIMAL    BAROMETER    AND    THE    ETERNAL    FEMI 
NINE          113 

MAKING  A  STAR  LION  AND  AN  INTERRUPTED  TEMPER 
ANCE   MEETING 137 

KALSOMINING    AN    ELEPHANT 1(53 

THE    HYPNOTIC    BEAR    AND    THE    SENTIMENTAL    LEC 
TURER        .        .        .        .        .        .  .        .  l^:{ 

THE    TRAGEDY   OF   THE   TIGERS    AND   THE    POWER   OF 
HYPNOTISM  .211 


671526 


THE   LIBERTY  OF  FRANZ 

AND  THE 
REBELLION   OF  FUZZY  WUZZY 


THE   LIBERTY  OF  FRANZ 
AND  THE          ,jj<, 
REBELLION   OF  FUZZY  WUZZY 


MADAME  MORELLI,  the  pretty 
little  Frenchwoman  who  makes  a 
half-score  of  leopards,  panthers 
and  jaguars  do  things  which  nature  never 
intended  them  to  do,  had  finished  her  act 
and  driven  the  snarling  performers  through 
the  narrow  runway  to  their  separate  cages, 
fastening  each  one,  as  she  thought,  securely. 
Two  French  clowns  were  filling  in  the  time 
and  making  the  audience  of  Coney  Island 
pleasure  seekers  laugh  by  their  antics  with 
a  performing  dog,  while  the  stage  hands 
were  bringing  in  the  properties  for  the  next 
trained  animal  act,  when  the  Proprietor 
came  from  behind  the  scenes  and  strolled, 
apparently  unconcerned,  to  the  back  of 
the  Arena,  where  he  could  command  a 
clear  view  of  the  performance,  the  audi- 

3 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

ence  and  the  cages.  He  said  a  few  words  to 
each  of  the  trainers  and  keepers  whom  he 
passed,  and  the  Stranger,  who  knew  the 
clock-like  regularity  with  which  each  one  of 
them  went  through  his  allotted  duties,  no 
ticed  ;an  unwonted  haste  and  suppressed  ex- 
cifement  among  them. 

As  he  joined  the  Proprietor  the  sound  of 
hammering  mingled  with  the  noise  of  the 
blatant  brass  band  and  the  cries  of  the  bally 
hoo  spielers  for  the  other  Dreamland  attrac 
tions,  which  came  in  through  the  open  win 
dows,  and  he  saw  that  Stevenson,  the  mild 
eyed  quiet  man  who  is  always  on  hand  to 
rescue  imperiled  trainers  and  keepers  when 
their  own  carelessness,  or  unexpected  revolt 
on  the  part  of  the  animals,  leads  to  a  fight, 
was  rapidly  nailing  boards  over  the  ventilat 
ing  spaces  above  the  cages.  Madam  Morelli, 
whip  and  training  rod  in  hand,  hurried  from 
her  dressing  room  to  the  runway,  and  every 
keeper  and  trainer  seemed  to  be  loitering  in 
the  space  between  the  leopards'  den  and  the 
audience. 

He  looked  at  the  Proprietor  inquiringly, 
4 


FUZZY    WUZZY 

but  tlie  little  trickle  of  blood  wbicb  ran  down 
his  cheek  from  under  his  cap  answered  the 
question  he  would  have  asked,  an  animal  was 


The  table  in  front  of  the  Arena. 

loose  and  the  Proprietor  had  encountered  it 
in  his  rounds.  A  crash  of  weird  music  from 
the  band  drowned  the  sound  of  a  cracking 
whip  and  sharp  commands  which  came  from 
the  runway,  and  announced  the  appearance 

5 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

of  Brandu,  the  snake  charmer,  in  the  exhibi 
tion  cage,  and  the  audience  watched  him  play 
with  a  cobra,  all  unconscious  that  Franz,  the 
jaguar,  which  a  few  minutes  before  had 
desisted  from  his  attempt  to  tear  the  fair 
shoulders  of  Morelli  only  after  a  dozen 
blank  cartridges  had  been  fired  in  his  face, 
was  a  gentleman-at-large  in  Dreamland. 
The  Proprietor  gave  a  sigh  of  relief  as  the 
jaguar  backed  into  his  cage  from  the  run 
way,  snarling  and  striking  at  the  little 
woman  who  forced  him  backward  with  the 
whip  until  she  was  able  to  slam  the  door  and 
make  him  once  more  a  prisoner.  When  she 
passed  them  on  her  way  back  to  the  dressing- 
room,  her  dress  was  torn,  and  her  eyes  were 
flashing  from  the  excitement  of  the  encoun 
ter  and  anger  at  the  carelessness  of  the  car 
penter  who  had  left  a  board  loose  at  the  top 
of  the  den. 

"Of  course,  that  might  have  been  a  serious 
thing  for  the  jaguar  and  for  my  pocket 
book,"  said  the  Proprietor  as  three  deep 
scratches  in  his  head  were  being  plastered 
up.  "I  couldn't  afford  to  take  any  chances 


FUZZY    WUZZY 

of  an  accident,  and  he  would  have  been  shot 
if  he  had  attempted  to  come  through  a  ven 
tilator  into  the  Arena,  but  a  trained  animal 
like  that  is  worth  a  goodish  bit  of  money. 


Two  French  clowns  and  a  performing  dog. 

He  let  me  know  he  was  loose  by  giving  me 
his  love  pat  when  I  was  walking  through 
the  runway,  and  as  Morelli  is  the  only  one 
who  can  do  anything  with  him  I  sent  for 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

her.  She  can  whip  considerably  more  than 
her  own  weight  in  wild-cats,  and  there  was 
not  the  slightest  danger  to  the  audience,  but 
not  many  men  would  have  relished  her  task 
of  going  into  that  passage  with  the  beast 
loose  on  top  of  the  cages."  He  negatived  the 
Press  Agent's  suggestion  to  make  a  scare- 
head  story  of  the  escape  for  the  papers,  and 
suggested  that  they  should  go  up  and  hear 
Madam  Morelli's  account  of  it.  She  was  sit 
ting  on  the  edge  of  her  bed,  mending  a  rip 
which  the  jaguar's  sharp  claws  had  made  in 
her  gown,  and  she  shrugged  her  shoulders 
when  the  Stranger  inquired  if  she  had  been 
hurt. 

"It  was  nothing,"  she  said  laughing.  "He 
jumped  at  me  from  the  top  of  a  cage  when 
I  came  in,  but  I  beat  him  off  and  whipped 
him  back  into  his  cage.  It  was  only  the  close 
quarters  which  made  it  bad,  for  I  am  used 
to  fighting  them."  She  was  interrupted  by 
a  yapping  and  caterwauling  in  the  doorway, 
and  sprang  on  the  bed,  her  face  white  with 
terror,  as  a  small  terrier  and  the  menagerie 
cat  rolled  into  the  room  in  a  clawing,  biting 

8 


FUZZY    WUZZY 

mix-up.  The  terrier  was  raising  a  litter  of 
puppies  in  the  next  room,  and  the  cat  had 
transformed  the  space  back  of  Morelli's  bed 
into  a  feline  nursery,  and  a  meeting  of  the 
two  anxious  mothers  in  the  hall  had  led  to 
trouble.  Madam  Morelli  always  goes 
through  her  performance  in  an  evening 
dress,  and  she  stood  on  the  bed,  her  long  train 
gathered  closely  about  her,  trembling  like  a 
leaf,  when  the  Proprietor  finally  separated 
the  combatants  and  restored  peace. 

"You  wouldn't  think  that  a  woman  who 
had  just  come  from  a  fight  with  a  two  hun 
dred  pound  jaguar,  which  could  easily  tear 
her  to  pieces,  would  be  scared  at  a  scrap  be 
tween  a  toy  terrier  and  a  mongrel  cat,"  said 
the  Proprietor,  laughing,  as  he  led  the  way 
to  the  cafe  table.  "But  she  makes  a  specialty 
of  the  larger  species." 

"This  matter  of  specialties  seems  to  run 
through  every  branch  of  the  show  business," 
said  the  Press  Agent  as  they  took  their  seats 
at  the  table.  "I  ran  a  dime  museum  in  St. 
Louis  a  few  years  ago — in  those  days  there 
was  lots  of  money  in  it — and  the  freaks 

9 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

would  never  stand  for  any  change  in  their 
billing.  We  used  to  have  a  fresh  lot  sent  on 
by  our  New  York  agent  every  two  weeks, 
and  one  Monday  morning  when  I  went 
down  to  look  over  the  new  arrivals,  I  knew 
that  he  had  been  up  against  the  demon  Rum, 
when  he  engaged  such  a  tough  looking 
bunch.  The  alleged  fat  woman  looked  as 
if  she  was  wasting  away  with  consumption, 
and  the  bearded  lady  had  a  way  of  absent- 
mindedly  humming  the  popular  airs  in  a 
bass  voice  which  gave  the  whole  snap  away. 
There  was  one  likely  looking  girl  and  when 
I  asked  her  what  she  was  she  told  me  she  was 
the  web-footed  lady  and  showed  me  her  feet, 
which  had  little  pieces  of  skin  growing  be 
tween  the  toes. 

"I  knew  that  wasn't  good  enough,  so  I 
told  her  she  was  mistaken;  that  she  was  a 
Circassian  beauty,  and  I  gave  her  a  wig  and 
the  fixings  and  put  her  on  the  platform.  But 
say,  would  you  believe  it?  She  was  so  mad 
and  embarrassed  by  the  change  in  her  stunt 
that  when  the  lecturer  was  calling  attention 
to  her  blond  beauty,  she  would  blush  until 

10 


FUZZY    WUZ/Y 

she  looked  like  an  Indian  Princess,  and  every 
time  he  turned  his  hack  she  would  take  off 


"  Things  which  Nature  never  intended  them  to  do" 

her  shoes  and  wiggle  her  toes  at  the  audience 
to  show  what  she  really  was. 

"It  was  up  to  us  to  get  some  real  attrac 
tion  to  tide  over  the  time  until  our  agent 

11 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

should  get  sober  and  send  us  another  bunch 
of  freaks,  so  Merritt,  who  was  my  partner, 
and  myself  hunted  up  a  big  buck  nigger  and 
made  a  deal  with  him  to  go  on  as  a  'Wild 
Man.'  We  ripped  up  a  hair  mattress  and 
glued  the  contents  onto  him,  and  wired  a 
couple  of  big  tusks  to  his  teeth,  and  with  an 
iron  collar  around  his  neck  and  a  log  chain 
around  his  waist  he  was  as  good  an  imitation 
as  was  ever  faked.  We  put  him  in  a  big 
cage  which  we  had  used  the  week  before 
for  a  mangy  old  lion;  one  of  the  five  hun 
dred  or  so  'Wallace  the  Untamables'  which 
were  touring  the  country,  and  Merritt 
taught  him  to  howl  like  a  steam  calliope. 

"We  called  him  Tuzzy  Wuzzy,  the  Ter 
rible  Man-Eating  Cannibal,'  which  was  a 
waste  of  words,  but  Merritt  had  language 
to  burn.  He  had  got  hold  of  a  phony  five 
hundred  dollar  bill,  and  when  he  was  giving 
his  spiel  about  how  Fuzzy  Wuzzy  was  cap 
tured  upon  a  desert  island,  where  he  was 
found  chewing  a  human  leg,  and  how  he 
couldn't  eat  anything  but  raw  meat,  and  was 
always  trying  to  get  at  his  keeper  for  des- 

12 


FUZZY    WUZZY 

sert,  he  would  wave  his  phony  five  hundred 
spot  over  his  head  and  give  it  to  'em  good. 

'  'Five  hundred  dollars,  ladies  and  gents, 
I  will  give  to  any  man  who  will  remain  for 
the  short  space  of  two  minutes  in  the  cage 
with  Fuzzy  Wuzzy!  Five  hundred  dollars 
to  any  man  who  is  brave  enough  to  run  the 
risk  of  letting  this  terrible  man-eating  can 
nibal  get  his  hinder  limbs  about  him,  for 
then  all  would  be  lost  and  Fuzzy  Wuzzy 
would  fasten  his  terrible  fangs  in  his  vic 
tim's  throat  and  suck  his  ber-lud.' 

"Well,  it  was  a  good  spiel,  all  right,  all 
right,  and  when  Merritt  struck  that  part  one 
of  the  supers  would  prod  up  old  Fuzzy,  who 
would  rattle  his  chains  and  howl  for  fair,  and 
the  audience  would  get  cold  chills  down  their 
backs.  We  were  playing  to  the  S.  R.  O., 
and  giving  so  many  shows  a  day  that  Mer 
ritt  pretty  nearly  lost  his  voice,  and  Fuzzy 
had  been  prodded  so  much  that  he  had  to 
take  his  meals  standing  up.  We  ran  'em 
through  pretty  fast,  and  one  afternoon  Mer 
ritt  was  just  going  to  give  the  'All  out' 
signal,  which  cleared  the  exhibition  hall  for 

13 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

the  next  performance,  when  up  steps  a  big 
husky  black  roustabout  from  the  levee  and 
commences  to  strip  off  his  coat. 

"  Mes'  a  minit,  boss,'  says  he.  'Ah  reckon 
ah  needs  dat  five  hundred  in  mah  bizness,' 
and  Merritt  looks  at  him  in  astonishment. 

"  'My  deluded  colored  brother,'  says  he, 
'Do  you  appreciate  the  fact  that  you  are 
going  to  a  certain  and  horrible  death?  If 
this  terrible  Fuzzy  Wuzzy  gets  his  hinder 
limbs  about  you  he  will  suck  your  ber-lud.' 

"  cAh  doan  reckon  he'll  git  me,  an'  ah  sut- 
tenly  needs_de  money,'  answers  the  coon,  and 
continues  to  strip,  and  Merritt  sizes  him  up 
and  sees  the  finish  of  Fuzzy  Wuzzy,  who  was 
shaking  the  bars  and  trying  to  get  away 
from  the  super  who  was  prodding  him;  but 
everybody  thought  he  was  trying  to  get  at 
the  coon  to  make  a  meal  of  him,  and  some 
of  the  women  folks  were  getting  hysterics. 
One  of  the  boys  had  put  me  wise,  and  I 
broke  through  the  crowd  and  called  a  halt  in 
the  proceedings. 

"  'Ladies  and  gentlemen,'  says  I,  'I  didn't 
believe  that  a  man  existed  who  was  fool- 

14 


"  Blank  cartridges  fired  in  his  face. 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

hardy  enough  to  be  tempted  to  certain  death 
by  the  lure  of  a  paltry  five  hundred  dollars. 
But  although  this  man  is  so  reckless  of  his 
own  life,  I  must  insist  that  he  get  a  permit 
from  the  mayor,  relieving  us  from  all  re 
sponsibility,  before  we  allow  him  to  be  torn 
limb  from  limb.  Return  to-morrow  at  two 
o'clock,  and  if  this  man's  courage  still  keeps 
up,  you  will  see  before  your  shuddering  eyes 
an  encounter  which  will  make  the  historical 
gladiatorial  combats  of  ancient  Rome  pale 
into  insignificance.'  I  could  sling  a  few  lan 
guage  myself,  those  days,  and  the  mayor 
was  a  friend  of  mine — or  I  thought  he  was — 
so  I  figured  we  could  catch  the  suckers  for 
an  admission  and  then  call  it  off,  because  he 
would  refuse  a  permit. 

"But  he  was  onto  the  game  and  he  was  one 
of  those  blame  fools  who  thought  he  had  a 
sense  of  humor,  so  he  gives  him  a  document 
with  a  big  red  seal  on  it  which  looks  like  a 
doctor's  diploma,  which  says  that  Thomas 
Jefferson  is  allowed  to  go  in  and  win.  our 
five  hundred,  and  the  next  day  the  coon 
shows  up  smiling  and  ready,  and  I  knew  we 

16 


FUZZY    WUZZY 

had  to  make  good  somehow.  I  passed  the 
word  to  Merritt  to  delay  the  game  and  make 
a  last  grand  effort  to  throw  a  scare  into  the 
coon,  and  he  put  up  a  spiel  to  beat  the  hand. 
"  'This  terrible  Fuzzy  Wuzzy  has  none  of 
the  attributes  of  a  human  being/  says  he. 
'He  lives  upon  raw  meat  and  would  prefer 
human  flesh  if  he  could  get  it.  Observe  the 
expression  of  ghoulish  glee  in  his  eyes  as  he 
regards  the  foolhardy  man  who  will  soon 
furnish  him  such  a  meal  as  he  formerly  en 
joyed  in  his  native  jungle.  He  sleeps  at 
night  suspended  from  the  top  bars  of  his 
cage  by  his  claw-like  hands  and  feet,  which 
will  soon  be  tearing  the  flesh  of  this  man 
who  stands  before  you  now,  a  picture  of 
perfect  health  and  strength.  He  speaks  no 
intelligible  language,  but  he  utters  howls 
and  yells,  which  will  be  more  horrible  than 
ever  before  when  he  is  sucking  the  warm 
heart's  be-lud  of  the  figure  which  you  see 
before  you  for  the  last  time  in  human  shape.' 
Just  then  the  super  gives  Fuzzy  a  prod  and 
he  howls  like  Balaam's  ass,  but  the  coon 
stands  there  smiling  and  not  f  eazed  a  bit. 

17 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

"  'It's  a  sad  sight,'  continues  Merritt,  'to 
see  a  fine  man  in  the  prime  of  life,  like  our 
colored  brother  here,  crushed  into  an  unrec 
ognizable  mass  by  the  terrible  hinder  limbs 
of  this  man-eating  cannibal  and  then  torn  to 
shreds  by  his  horrible  fangs.  The  manage 
ment  of  this  highly  moral  and  intellectual 
show  will  provide  a  funeral  for  the  remains, 
if  there  are  any,  and  now,  ladies  and  gents, 
I  call  upon  you  to  witness  that  we  are  not 
responsible  for  the  terrible  end  which  awaits 
this  reckless  man.' 

"I  had  taken  the  precaution  to  button  up 
the  box  office  'take'  in  my  inside  pocket,  and 
while  Merritt  was  making  a  bluff  at  looking 
for  the  key  to  the  cage  door  I  looked 
around  to  see  that  there  was  a  free  exit,  for 
the  coon  was  standing  there  swelling  out  his 
chest  and  grinning  as  if  he  had  the  five  hun 
dred  already  in  his  jeans,  and  I  knew  he 
couldn't  be  bluffed  out.  Just  then  a  typical 
antebellum  Missourian,  one  of  the  kind  that 
has  to  be  shown,  steps  up  in  front.  He  was 
tanked  up  until  his  safety  valve  would  have 
blown  off  if  it  hadn't  been  wired  down,  but 

18 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

he  was  pretty  steady  on  his  pins  when  he  held 
onto  the  railing  in  front  of  the  cage. 

"  'Professah,'  says  he,  'did  I  undahstand 
yo'  all  correctly  to  say  that  this  yeah  object 
in  the  cage  has  none  of  the  attributes  of  the 
human  race?' 

"'Correct!'  says  Merritt,  glad  of  an  ex 
cuse  to  delay  things.  'He  is  lower  than  the 
beasts  of  the  field.' 

"  'Well,  he  suttenly  aint  much  to  look  at/ 
says  the  Southerner,  looking  him  over  care 
fully.  'He  won't  eat  like  folks — he  can't 
talk — an'  he  sleeps  like  a  bat.  I  dunno  why 
such  a  pusillanimous  critter  should  cumber 
the  y earth,'  and  with  that  he  puts  his  hand 
to  his  hip  and  pulls  out  a  forty-five  from 
under  the  tails  of  his  coat.  Fuzzy  takes  one 
look  at  it,  and  it  didn't  need  any  prodding  to 
make  him  holler,  and  he  tries  to  tear  off  the 
false  tusks. 

"  Toh  Gawd's  sake,  mistah,  doan  shoot!' 
he  yells.  'Dat  white  mahn's  been  tellin'  a 
passel  ob  lies  about  me  until  ah's  sartain 
suah  somefing  gwine  f er  to  git  me.  Ah  can 
eat  an'  talk  like  any  one,  an'  mos'  ebery  one 

20 


FUZZY   WUZZY 

knows  me  about  yeah  wen  ah  ain't  got  dese 
yeah  contraptions  on.' 

"  'Shut  up,  you  blame  fool!'  says  Merritt. 
'He  won't  shoot  you.' 

"  'Mebbe  he  knows  dat,  mebbe  you  knows 
dat;  but  how  does  I  know  dat?'  yells  Fuzzy. 
'Dat  gun  suttenly  looks  big  to  me.' 

"About  this  time  the  other  coon  got  wise 
and  sawr  the  five  hundred  vanishing,  and  the 
last  I  saw  of  Merritt  he  was  trying  to  break 
a  half-Nelson  that  the  coon  had  got  on  him 
and  dodge  the  rest  of  the  crowd  at  the  same 
time.  I  left  St.  Louis  on  a  freight  that 
night,  wearing  a  few  lumps  where  some 
stray  brickbats  landed,  and  the  next  time  I 
saw  Merritt  was  in  Chicago,  and  he  was  on 
crutches  and  had  his  head  covered  with 
plaster." 

No  thunderbolt  dropped  from  the  blue 
dome  over  the  Dreamland  tower,  and  the 
Proprietor,  with  a  childlike  and  bland  smile 
on  his  face,  motioned  to  the  waiter  to  refill 
the  glasses. 


21 


THE   BITE  OF  A   RATTLER 

AND 
THE   SAD   FATE  OF  BIG  PETE 


THE   BITE   OF  A   RATTLER 

AND 
THE   SAD   FATE   OF  BIG   PETE 


E[E  the  pitcher  which  went  to  the  well 
until  it  met  the  proverbial  fate,  the 
trainer  entered  the  lion's  den  once  too 
often,  and  what  remained  of  him  was 
placed  in  an  ambulance  and  taken  to  the 
hospital.  After  the  performance  for  the 
evening  was  over,  Baltimore,  the  bad  lion, 
who  had  suddenly  developed  a  craving  for 
human  flesh,  had  been  dealt  with  by  the  Pro 
prietor  of  the  menagerie  in  a  manner  which 
would  spoil  his  appetite  for  many  a  day  to 
come  and  make  him  remember  that  trainers 
cannot  be  mangled  with  impunity. 

Most  of  the  lights  were  extinguished  at 
Dreamland,  but  two  men  sat  at  the  table 
in  front  of  the  Arena  with  the  Proprietor, 
discussing  the  accident  and  listening  to  sto 
ries  of  former  encounters  which  he  related. 

25 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

His  own  body  bears  the  scars  of  many  a 
battle  with  his  savage  charges,  but  he  has 
discontinued  giving  personal  exhibitions 
with  them  in  the  large  cage,  because  his  wife 
has  developed  a  prejudice  against  having 
him  brought  to  her  in  fragments,  and  he  has 
found  that  the  training  of  trainers  is  a  far 
more  difficult  task  than  the  education  of  wild 
animals. 

"Yes,  any  man  who  follows  this  business 
carries  his  life  in  his  hands,"  he  said  in  an 
swer  to  a  question  from  the  Stranger  within 
the  gates.  "You  helped  to  care  for  poor 
Bonavita  to-night,  after  Baltimore  finished 
with  him,  so  you  know  what  a  lion's  jaws 
can  do.  I've  seen  'em  chewed  up  as  bad  as 
that  and  get  over  it,  but  they  never  get  quite 
the  same  again.  Leave  the  business?  No; 
it  is  like  the  sea :  a  man  who  takes  to  it  keeps 
it  up  until  the  time  comes  when  he  doesn't 
recover,  but  after  a  bad  accident  he  usually 
takes  another  breed  of  animals. 

"The  worst  sight  I  ever  saw  was  about  five 
years  ago,  when  one  of  our  performing 
bears  turned  on  its  trainer  and  seized 

26 


THE    BITE    OF    A   RATTLER 


his  arm.  He  worried 
it  as  a  terrier  would  a 
bone  for  a  good  twenty 
minutes  before  we  could 
drive  him  off,  and  the 
bear  died  from  the  pun 
ishment  we  gave  him. 
The  man's  arm  isn't 
much  use  to  him  now, 
but  he  is  crazy  for  me 
to  give  him  another 
group  of  animals  to 
train,  which  I  can't  do 
because  a  man  needs 
two  good  pairs  of  limbs 
when  he  gets  into  the 
exhibition  cage."  He 
told  of  many  accidents 
which  had  happened  to 
himself  and  his  em 
ployees,  most  of  them 
through  their  own  care 
lessness,  born  of  con 
stant  association  with 
their  charges  who  never 

27 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

miss  the  opportunity  which  the  shortest  in 
stant  of  f  orgetf ulness  gives  them. 

"I  said  that  bear  attack  was  the  worst 
sight  I  ever  saw,  and  it  was;  but  something 
happened  here  last  year  which  impressed  me 
more  because  it  was  so  mysterious.  A  friend 
of  mine  in  Florida  shipped  me  a  box  of  rat 
tlers,  which  he  wrote  had  been  'attended  to,' 
and  I  supposed  that  their  poison  fangs  had 
been  extracted.  They  were  delivered  just 
before  the  performance  started  and  I  ripped 
a  board  off  the  box  and  stuck  my  hand  in, 
grabbing  them  one  by  one  and  throwing 
them  into  the  den  as  if  they  were  garter 
snakes. 

"The  man  who  took  care  of  the  snakes  was 
out  on  the  ballyhoo,  walking  around  with 
the  gander  following  him  to  advertise  the 
show;  and  when  he  came  in  he  looked  them 
over  and  found  that  each  one  had  as  pretty  a 
pair  of  fangs  as  you  would  wish  to  see.  He 
told  me  about  it  and  I  confess  that  it  gave 
me  a  gone  feeling  in  the  pit  of  my  stomach, 
for  I  remembered  how  I  had  felt  around  for 
them  in  the  box  with  my  bare  hands. 

28 


THE    BITE    OF    A   RATTLER 

"I  am  pretty  busy  while  a  performance 
is  going  on,  so  I  told  him  to  let  them  alone 
until  I  had  a  chance  to  examine  them. 
Ninety  per  cent,  of  the  accidents  which  oc 
cur  in  a  menagerie  comes  from  the  disregard 
of  ordinary  precautions  or  the  disobedience 
of  orders,  and  I  had  a  presentiment  that 
something  was  going  to  happen  and  I  was 
keeping  an  extra  vigilant  eye  on  the  per 
formers  in  the  big  exhibition  cage.  Well,  it 
happened,  all  right ;  but  not  in  the  way  that 
I  expected. 

"The  snake  man  instead  of  getting  back 
on  the  ballyhoo  where  he  belonged,  stood 
around  the  snake  cage,  watching  the  new 
rattlers,  and  along  came  a  couple  of  gazabos 
who  commenced  talking  about  them.  One 
of  them  was  the  wise  guy,  who  always  knows 
about  how  the  animals  are  doped  so  they 
won't  bite  and  all  that  other  information 
which  isn't  so.  He  commenced  explaining 
how  the  snakes  were  harmless,  because  their 
teeth  had  been  pulled,  and  giving  a  lot  of 
misinformation  about  them.  The  snake 
man  listened  until  he  couldn't  stand  it  any 
29 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

longer  and  then  he  stuck  his  hand  into  the 
cage  and  grabbed  one  of  the  rattlers  by  the 
neck. 

"  'Fangs  pulled,  eh?'  says  he,  and  he  made 
the  rattler  open  his  mouth  and  show  a  per 
fect  pair  of  stingers.  The  wise  guy  took 
one  look  at  them  and  fled,  and  the  snake  man 
would  have  carried  it  off  all  right,  only  he 
was  so  busy  calling  a  few  choice  names  after 
him  that  he  placed  the  snake  back  in  the  cage 
instead  of  throwing  it  in,  and  the  rattler 
struck  him  before  he  could  draw  his  hand 
out.  He  had  a  clown  make-up  on,  so  I 
couldn't  tell  whether  he  was  pale  or  not 
when  he  came  to  me  a  few  minutes  later  and 
held  out  his  hand,  but  there  was  a  queer  ex 
pression  on  his  face  and  I  knew  that  my  ap 
prehensions  had  not  been  groundless. 

"There  were  just  two  little  red  dots,  no 
bigger  than  pin  heads,  on  the  back  of  his 
hand. 

"  'You  got  it,  didn't  you?'  says  I. 

"  'Good  and  plenty,'  says  he.  'My  arm 
hurts  me  already.' 

"We  got  busy  right  away  and  took  him  up 
30 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

to  the  hospital  where  Bonavita  is  now.  Say, 
he  was  a  very  thin  man  and  you  can  see  that 
I'm  no  lightweight;  but  by  midnight  the 
right  side  of  his  body  and  his  right  arm  and 
leg  were  swollen  to  my  size,  and  in  the  morn 
ing  all  of  the  swollen  part  was  as  black  as  a 
coal.  He  was  suffering  terribly,  and  I  tried 
to  get  hold  of  the  Arab  snake  doctor  but 
couldn't  locate  him,  so  I  wired  to  Rochester 
for  Rattlesnake  Pete.  He  came  down  and 
a  mighty  interesting  man  he  is,  but  he 
couldn't  do  anything  which  'Doc'  up  at  the 
hospital  hadn't  done,  and  it  was  five  days 
before  my  man  was  out  of  danger.  He  was 
not  a  drinking  man — I  finished  having 
drunkards  around  my  show  a  good  many 
years  ago — and  the  whiskey  took  right  hold 
of  him  and  pulled  him  through.  'Doc'  kept 
squirting  some  red  stuff  into  his  arm,  but  it 
was  the  'red-eye'  which  saved  him — and  that 
reminds  me." 

He  beckoned  to  the  waiter  and  each  one 
ordered  his  favorite  antidote  for  a  possible 
snake  bite. 

"Did  he  return  to  the  show?"  asked  the 
32 


THE    BITE    OF    A    RATTLER 

Stranger,  after  he  had  rendered  himself  im 
mune. 

"He   sure   did;   you   couldn't   keep   him 


Noah  listens  to  the  tale  of  a  Johnstown  flood  survivor. 

away,  but  he  has  never  been  fond  of  snakes 
since.  It  is  the  same  man  whom  you  saw 
putting  the  group  of  elephants  through 
their  paces  to-night." 

33 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

It  was  growing  late,  and  the  Proprietor 
announced  that  he  was  going  to  show  his 
wife  a  good  husband  and  said  good-night, 
but  the  Stranger  waited  for  the  story  which 
he  saw  was  trembling  upon  his  companion's 
lips,  and  induced  the  sleepy  waiter  to  bring 
a  farewell  dose  of  snake-bite  antidote.  The 
man  was  unknown  to  him  by  name,  but  his 
personality  promised  to  be  interesting,  for 
his  face  spoke  of  good  living,  the  red  of  his 
complexion  was  evidently  not  entirely  due  to 
exposure  to  the  sun,  and  the  little  sacs  under 
the  eyes  indicated  that  he  was  apt  to  be  the 
last  of  a  convivial  party  to  suggest  break 
ing  up. 

He  had  listened  to  the  Proprietor's  stories 
with  the  same  bored  expression  which  Noah 
might  wear  in  hearing  the  experiences  of  a 
survivor  of  the  Johnstown  flood,  and  he 
looked  regretfully  at  the  vacant  chair,  now 
that  his  turn  had  come. 

"Snakes!"  he  exclaimed  with  a  con 
temptuous  snort.  "What  does  the  boss 
know  about  'em?  I  used  to  own  the  only 
snake  that  was  worth  having.  Ever  hear  of 

34 


THE    BITE    OF    A   RATTLER 

'Big  Pete'?"  The  Stranger  confessed  his 
ignorance,  and  the  other  settled  back  in  his 
chair  and  lighted  a  fresh  cigar. 

"I'll  tell  you  about  him,  then.  You  know 
that  a  snake  is  a  queer  proposition  in  a  me 
nagerie.  They  get  sore  mouths — canker  the 
fakirs  call  it — and  won't  eat,  and  then,  if 
you've  got  any  investment  in  'em  you  want 
to  get  it  out  mighty  quick,  for  they  are  no 
orchids.  I  was  pretty  well  on  my  uppers, 
after  a  bad  season  on  the  road,  when  a  guy 
named  Merritt  came  to  me  and  said  he 
could  get  a  fine  snake  cheap,  and  he  thought 
we  might  make  some  money  out  of  him  by 
showing  him  to  the  Rubes  at  the  county 
fairs.  4 

"What  I  didn't  know  about  snakes  would 
have  filled  a  book,  but  when  I  saw  this  one  I 
knew  it  was  a  bargain.  It  was  the  blamedest 
biggest  snake  that  ever  gave  a  wriggle,  and 
the  only  reason  its  owners  had  not  made  a 
fortune  was  because  it  was  never  properly 
advertised.  I  used  to  know  just  how  much 
he  weighed  and  how  long  he  was,  but  my 
brain  got  so  tired  figuring  up  the  money  we 

35 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

made  out  of  him  that  I've  had  no  memory 
for  figures  since. 

"Well,  as  I  said,  I  was  pretty  hard  up,  but 
I  had  this  sparkler  left  for  'fall  money,'  and 
when  I  saw  that  snake  I  pushed  it  over  my 
uncle's  counter."  He  pointed  to  a  large 
yellow  diamond  in  his  scarf,  and  the 
Stranger  tried  to  make  a  mental  calcula 
tion  of  a  pawnbroker's  valuation  of  it. 

"Merritt  managed  to  dig  up  some  ma- 
zuma,  and  we  chipped  in  fifty  apiece  and  be 
came  the  proud  possessors  of  Big  Pete.  If 
I  had  been  wise  to  the  business  I  would  have 
known  there  was  something  wrong  to  make 
him  sell  so  cheap,  but  we  more  than  got  our 
money  back  out  of  him  the  first  week,  so  we 
had  no  kick  coming.  The  newspaper  boys 
were  good  to  us  and  gave  us  a  lot  of  space, 
and  we  were  playing  on  velvet  and  had  Pete 
besides.  It  was  such  a  cinch  that  Merritt, 
who  looked  after  the  snake  while  I  did  the 
spieling  and  sold  tickets  on  the  front,  com 
menced  to  get  worried  for  fear  we  should 
lose  him. 

"  'Jim,'  says  he  to  me  one  morning  when 
36 


THE    BITE    OF   A   RATTLER 

business  was  a  little  dull,  'I  believe  there's 
something  phony  about  the  blame  snake. 
He  won't  eat  and  I've  tempted  him  with  the 


"  Just  two  little  red  dots  on  the  back  of  his  hand." 

best  I  could  get.     I  guess  I'll  run  down  to 
the  Bowery  and   get  one  of  those  snake 
sharps  to  come  up  and  have  a  look  at  him;  I 
believe  his  teeth  need  filling.' 
37 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

"I  knew  he  was  stuck  on  a  girl  that  was 
doing  a  turn  in  a  music  hall  down  that  way, 
but  business  was  dull,  so  I  let  him  go  without 
raising  a  holler.  The  next  day  he  comes 
back  with  a  jaw-carpenter  who  claimed  he 
knew  all  about  snakes  and  when  he  gets 
through  looking  at  Pete's  mouth  we  felt 
pretty  blue. 

"  'Canker!'  says  he.  'Your  little  snakelet 
may  live  a  month.' 

"Well,  that  put  it  up  to  us  to  get  busy,  so 
I  did  the  spieling  on  the  outside  until  my 
voice  gave  out,  and  Merritt  lied  on  the  in 
side  until  he  was  black  in  the  face,  telling  the 
Rubes  about  how  many  sheep  old  Pete  swal 
lowed  every  week.  We  had  a  lot  of  rabbits 
and  doves  with  him  in  the  cage,  hopping  and 
flying  around  behind  the  thick  glass  front, 
and  they  were  real  sociable  with  old  Pete, 
who  never  batted  an  eye  at  'em.  At  the  end 
of  the  month  he  was  looking  pretty  thin  and 
we  were  afraid  he  would  peg  out  any  day. 
It  was  hard  luck  on  us,  for  things  were  com 
ing  our  way  and  our  bank  rolls  were  getting 
good  and  plenty  thick  and  they  were  all 

38 


THE    BITE    OF   A   RATTLER 

*yellow  boys,'  from  the  case  card  to  the  wrap 
per.  Our  wads  grew  fatter  as  Pete  grew 
thinner,  and  we  were  looking  for  some  easy 
mark  to  unload  him  onto,  when  one  morning 
Merrill  comes  running  out,  just  as  I  was 
staving  off  a  farmer  who  had  heard  him  lie 
and  brought  around  a  flock  of  scabby  sheep 
to  sell  to  us  for  snake  food. 

"  'Jim,'  he  yells,  grabbing  me  by  the  shoul 
ders  and  waltzing  around  like  a  whirling 
dervish,  'we'll  make  Vanderbilt  and  Rocke 
feller  look  like  thirty  cents;  old  Pete  has 
swallowed  every  blame  pigeon  and  rabbit  in 
the  coop.' 

"It  seemed  too  good  to  be  true,  but  when 
I  went  to  have  a  look  there  was  not  a  feather 
nor  a  piece  of  fur  to  be  seen  and  old  Pete 
was  examining  all  the  corners  of  the  cage  to 
see  that  he  hadn't  overlooked  a  bit.  He 
looked  a  whole  lot  better  already,  and  Mer- 
ritt  and  I  began  to  discuss  what  we  should 
do  with  all  our  money. 

"But  say,  there  was  one  thing  we  forgot 
to  reckon  on — the  appetite  he  had  been  sav 
ing  for  about  a  year,  and  although  the 
39 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

money  came  in  faster  than  ever,  most  of  it 
went  out  to  the  rabbit  men  and  pigeon 
fanciers. 

"You  know  that  when  a  snake  swallows 
an  animal  you  can  see  the  bulge  in  him 
for  a  long  time,  but  you  couldn't  see  any  in 
old  Pete.  He  was  just  the  same  size  all  the 
way  from  his  nose  to  the  tip  of  his  tail,  for 
there  was  no  space  between  the  animals. 

"Things  began  to  look  pretty  serious  for 
us,  for  we  had  used  up  all  the  available  small 
live  stock  in  the  surrounding  country,  and 
the  Rubes  got  onto  the  fact  that  we  were  up 
against  their  game  and  raised  the  ante  on  us 
for  what  was  left.  It's  like  taking  candy 
from  a  child  to  sell  a  gold  brick  to  a  farmer, 
but  he  everlastingly  gets  back  at  you  if  you 
have  to  buy  any  of  his  produce.  Hungry 
Joe  and  the  man  who  invented  the  green- 
goods  game  would  be  skinned  to  death  if 
they  had  to  buy  a  dozen  eggs  from  one  of 
'em. 

"And  all  the  time  old  Pete  kept  a  con 
stant  procession  of  small  animals  moving 
down  his  throat,  regardless  of  expense,  and 
40 


THE    BITE    OF    A   RATTLER 

if  the  supply  ran  short  he  would  look  at 
Merritt  so  reproachfully  that  it  made  him 
feel  so  bad  he  couldn't  deliver  his  lecture  for 
sobs.  He  worked  the  pathetic  on  him,  but 
if  I  came  around  there  was  no  'Only  three 
grains  of  corn,  mother,'  expression  on  his 
face;  he  would  just  rear  up  on  his  tail  and 
lambaste  that  glass  trying  to  get  at  me.  I 
had  been  living  pretty  well  during  our  pros 
perity  and  I  guess  I  looked  good  to  him,  so 
rather  than  have  any  hard  feelings  about  it 
I  stuck  closer  than  ever  to  the  front  of  the 
house. 

"We  had  rented  a  frame  building  in  a 
little  towrn  up  on  the  Hudson  and  were 
showing  him  off  in  good  form.  Business 
was  rushing  and  we  had  the  S.  R.  O.  sign 
out  all  the  time,  but  snake  food  was  getting 
scarcer  than  boiled  lobsters  during  the  cold 
snap  last  winter.  The  show  had  closed  up 
for  night  and  we  were  trying  to  make  dents 
in  the  front  of  the  tavern  bar  with  our  breast 
bones  and  laying  in  a  stock  of  supplies,  in 
case  old  Pete  should  bite  us. 

"While  we  were  discussing  the  best  way 
41 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

to  stimulate  the  rabbit-breeding  industry, 
'biff — boom — bang,'  went  the  town  bell  and 
the  barkeep  commenced  to  peel  off  his  coat 
and  get  into  a  red  flannel  shirt  and  a  fire 
man's  helmet.  It  was  one  of  those  towns 
where  they  have  a  dude  volunteer  fire  de 
partment,  which  the  boys  all  join  for  the 
socials  in  the  winter  and  to  look  pretty  on 
the  annual  parade  day.  Merritt  and  I  didn't 
hurry  any;  we  knew  that  it  would  take  some 
time  for  the  chief,  who  kept  the  town  drug 
store,  to  get  into  his  red  shirt  and  shiny  boots 
and  select  the  bouquet  to  carry  in  the  big  end 
of  his  speaking  trumpet.  Pretty  soon,  'Al 
ways  Ready,  Ever  Faithful,  Hose  Company 
Number  One,'  which  comprised  the  depart 
ment,  came  down  the  street,  all  of  the  com 
pany  shouting  orders  through  trumpets  at 
the  two  coons  who  were  pulling  the  cart. 

"Of  course,  we  went  along  to  see  the 
'Fighting  the  Flames'  show,  but  say:  the 
joke  was  on  us,  for  it  was  our  theater  which 
provided  it.  There  wasn't  anything  left  to 
burn  and  the  hose  company  marched 
proudly  back.  Poor  old  Pete  was  nothing 
42 


THE    BITE    OF    A   RATTLER 

but  a  heap  of  ashes  and  Merritt  looked  sor 
rowful. 

"  'Jim,'  says  he,  'let's  copper  the  rabbit 
market  before  they  get  wise.' ' 

"Did  you  have  no  insurance?"  asked  the 
Stranger  sympathetically. 

"Not  a  blame  cent/'  replied  his  com 
panion  as  he  rose  to  go  to  bed.  "But  I  am 
making  good  money  out  of  old  Pete  yet. 
I  had  him  stuffed  and  get  a  hundred  a  week 
from  a  dime  museum  for  him — and  they 
furnish  the  feed." 


4,3 


THE   AMOROUS   BABOON 


THE  AMOROUS  BABOON 

THANKS  to  the  busy  Press  Agent, 
the  fame  of  Jocko  the  Jealous,  the 
amorous  bahoon,  had  preceded  him 
to  Ajnerica,  and  when  the  animals  from 
the  Paris  Hippodrome  had  been  safely 
transferred  to  their  dens  in  the  Arena  at 
Dreamland  he  was  the  center  of  attraction 
as  he  limbered  up  his  muscles  in  the  large 
monkey  cage,  after  the  cramped  accommo 
dations  of  the  small  traveling  box.  He  had 
gained  a  reputation  as  a  masher  in  Paris ;  but 
never  had  the  menagerie  attendants  seen 
him  so  madly  in  love  and  so  insanely  jealous 
as  upon  his  first  introduction  to  American 
beauty,  as  exemplified  by  the  fair  woman 
who  stood  before  his  cage. 

Jocko  was  not  the  first  male  being  who 
had  been  fascinated  by  the  charms  of  the 
Prima  Donna  during  her  career ;  for  she  had 

47 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

been  through  the  marriage  ceremony  so 
often  that  she  could  say  it  backwards,  never 
forgetting  to  cross  her  fingers  before  saying, 
"Until  death  do  us  part."  The  Proprietor 
drew  the  Stranger's  attention  to  the  group 
before  the  cage,  a  mischievous  smile  on  his 
face  as  he  looked  over  the  half  dozen  of  cal 
low  youths  who  are  always  in  the  train  of  the 
Prima  Donna. 

"Watch  out  for  squalls  over  there,"  he 
said.  "Jocko  is  affectionate  now,  but  there 
will  be  something  doing  in  a  few  minutes." 
The  monkey  was  using  all  of  the  blandish 
ments  known  to  an  amorous  baboon  and 
although  the  wrords  of  his  soft  chattering 
were  unintelligible,  their  import  could  not 
be  mistaken  by  a  past  mistress  of  the  gentle 
art  of  love  making;  but  the  Prima  Donna 
could  not  be  beguiled  into  placing  herself 
within  reach  of  the  hairy  paws.  Suddenly 
his  mood  changed,  for  one  of  her  male  com 
panions  placed  his  hand  on  her  arm  to  at 
tract  her  attention  and  Jocko,  giving  a  howl 
of  rage,  danced  madly  up  and  down  on  all 
fours,  showing  a  vicious  set  of  fangs  as  his 

48 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

lips  curled  back  in  a  hideous  snarl.  The  bars 
of  his  cage  were  strong  and  so  close  together 
that  he  could  not  get  out  to  attack  his  rival; 
but  he  gathered  up  a  mass  of  litter  from  the 
floor  and  showered  Prima  Donna  and  callow 
youth  alike.  His  screams  echoed  through 
the  Arena  and  caused  even  the  majestic  lions 
and  the  haughty  tigers  to  look  in  the  direc 
tion  of  the  cage  of  the  despised  "Bandar 
Log,"  and  made  the  smaller  animals  uneasy. 
The  woman  who  was  described  on  the  pro 
gramme  as  "Miss  ,  Famous  Society 

Woman,"  had  torn  herself  away  from  her 
arduous  social  duties  with  the  Four  Hun 
dred  to  exhibit  a  troupe  of  leopards  to  a 
Coney  Island  audience,  her  identity  con 
cealed  by  a  small  black  mask,  and  her  per 
formance  in  the  big  cage  was  interrupted 
by  the  noise;  so  the  Proprietor  thought  it 
time  to  interfere. 

The  Prima  Donna  laughed  good-natur 
edly  as  he  helped  to  brush  the  sawdust  and 
litter  from  her  dress  and  tactfully  drew  her 
away,  and  Jocko  quieted  down  and  implored 
her  to  return;  but  she  was  accustomed  to 

50 


THE    AMOROUS    BABOON 

gentler  wooing,  and  refused  to  put  her 
dainty  gown  again  in  jeopardy. 

"Jocko  gave  quite  a  performance  to 
night,"  said  the  Proprietor  as  he  joined  the 
Press  Agent  and  the  Stranger  at  the  table, 
after  the  show.  "That  baboon  is  crazy 
about  women;  but  he  hasn't  the  discrimina 
tion  of  Consul,  the  most  intelligent  monkey 
that  ever  lived.  You  may  remember  that  he 
was  never  quiet  in  his  cage,  but  if  a  specially 
well-dressed  woman  stopped  in  front  of  it  he 
played  entirely  to  her  and  when  she  moved 
away  his  eyes  followed  her  as  long  as  she  was 
in  sight." 

"There  will  never  be  another  like  Con 
sul,"  said  the  Press  Agent,  shaking  his  head 
sadly.  "He  made  my  job  a  sinecure,  for 
he  was  good  for  a  column  any  day  and  a 
full  page  on  Sundays." 

"Never  until  the  Missing  Link  is  discov 
ered,"  replied  the  Proprietor.  "I  don't  be 
lieve  a  more  human  monkey  will  ever  be 
found,  and  I  attribute  his  wonderful  intelli 
gence  to  the  fact  that  he  associated  entirely 
with  human  beings,  almost  from  the  day  of 

51 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

his  birth.  I  got  him  from  the  captain  of  a 
tramp  steamer  which  traded  to  the  West 
Coast,  and  I  paid  a  goodish  bit  of  money  for 
him  too.  I  have  never  dared  to  tell  his  early 
history  as  it  was  told  to  me,  for  fear  I  should 
be  laughed  at  for  a  liar ;  but  stranger  things 
happen  in  the  animal  business  than  ever  get 
into  print,  and  if  I  dared  risk  my  reputation 
by  telling  the  things  which  actually  occur  in 
a  menagerie,  I  should  never  need  a  Press 
Agent;  but  a  plausible  lie  is  accepted  where 
a  truth  which  sounds  improbable  is  turned 
down." 

The  Press  Agent  looked  at  him  reproach 
fully,  but  agreed  with  the  proposition. 

"Do  you  know,  I  have  found  that  to  be 
true  when  I  have  visited  the  newspaper 
offices,"  he  said.  "I  have  actually  had  to 
embroider  some  of  the  accounts  of  things 
which  have  happened  here." 

"I  suspected  it,  for  I  didn't  recognize 
some  of  the  stories  when  I  saw  them  in 
print,"  answered  the  Proprietor,  smiling  at 
him  approvingly.  He  consented  to  tell  the 
history  of  Consul,  the  famous  chimpanzee, 

52 


THE    AMOROUS    BABOON 

when  the  Stranger  expressed  his  entire  cre 
dulity  and  the  Press  Agent  assumed  an  en 
couraging  and  sympathetic  attitude. 


"  Jocko,  giving  a  howl  of  rage,  danced  madly  up  and  down." 

"Of  course,  I  have  to  take  the  ship  cap 
tain's  word  for  what  happened  before  I 
bought  him,  but  from  the  way  the  chimp  de 
veloped  and  the  intelligence  he  displayed 

53 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

after  he  came  into  my  possession,  I  am  pre 
pared  to  believe  it.  He  told  me  that  he  got 
him  from  the  natives  at  the  mouth  of  a  small 
river  on  the  West  Coast,  where  he  anchored 
his  steamer  to  trade.  They  came  off  about 
the  ship  in  their  canoes,  but  he  did  not  care 
for  the  rubber  and  ivory  they  had  to  offer 
and  he  was  about  to  hoist  anchor  when  one 
of  them,  who  was  in  a  small  canoe  with  a 
woman,  motioned  to  him  to  stop.  The  wom 
an  was  crouched  up  in  the  stern,  nursing 
what  the  captain  thought  was  a  baby,  but 
when  the  man  dragged  it  away  from  her,  in 
spite  of  her  voluble  protest,  he  saw  that  it 
was  a  small  chimpanzee.  The  man  seemed 
desperately  anxious  to  trade — and  I  imag 
ine  the  captain's  trade  goods  were  not  the 
sort  to  meet  the  entire  approval  of  the  mis 
sionaries — so  that  a  bargain  was  concluded 
and  the  woman's  grief  allayed  by  a  generous 
share  of  the  purchase  price.  As  nearly  as  he 
could  make  out,  she  had  found  the  little 
thing  in  the  jungle  when  it  was  only  a  few 
days  old  and  had  reared  it  in  place  of  a  baby 
which  had  just  died.  She  was  a  low  type  of 

54 


THE   AMOROUS    BABOON 

woman,  even  for  an  African  savage,  but  the 
maternal  instinct  was  strong  enough  to 
make  her  grieve  for  little  Consul,  as  the 
captain  christened  him.  The  monkey 
grieved  over  the  separation,  too,  but  sailors 
make  much  of  animals  and  he  soon  became 
reconciled  to  it. 

"Thousands  of  people  saw  him  after  I 
purchased  him,  and  you  can  judge  of  the 
reputation  he  attained  when  I  tell  you  that 
I  was  getting  fifteen  hundred  dollars  a  week 
for  him  in  Berlin  when  he  died,  and  he  was 
booked  for  the  entire  season  at  that  price. 
People  had  seen  him  eat  with  a  knife  and 
fork,  smoke  a  cigar,  use  a  typewriter  and  do 
all  of  the  stunts  which  simply  aped  hu 
manity,  but  you  had  to  live  with  the  little 
beast  to  appreciate  how  intensely  human  he 
was.  Everybody  connected  with  the  show 
loved  him,  and  when  I  wanted  to  find  any 
one  of  the  employees  who  was  off  duty,  or 
not  in  his  proper  place,  I  always  went  first  to 
Consul's  cage  and  I  was  pretty  sure  to  locate 
him.  That  monkey  was  never  still,  and  the 
things  he  would  do  and  the  pranks  he  would 

55 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

play  off  his  own  bat  were  more  amusing 
than  any  of  the  things  he  had  been  taught. 

"When  he  was  in  company  he  was  as  well 
mannered  as  most  men,  but,  of  course,  he 
had  his  prejudices  and  had  to  be  watched. 
His  special  aversion  was  a  negro,  which  is 
strange  when  you  consider  his  early  associa 
tions,  and  if  one  came  around  when  he  was 
loose  he  was  apt  to  attack  him.  We  had  to 
consider  that  in  traveling,  for  Consul  always 
stopped  at  the  hotels  with  his  trainer  and  sat 
about  the  lobbies,  smoking  his  cigar  like  any 
other  guest,  but  if  there  were  negro  servants 
about,  we  had  to  be  very  careful  not  to  let 
them  come  near  him. 

"He  had  the  reasoning  power  of  a  child 
of  ten  years  old;  he  was  patient  when  any 
thing  was  wrong  and  we  had  to  do  disagree 
able  things  to  him,  appreciating  that  it  was 
for  his  benefit.  Only  once  did  we  have  to  use 
force,  when  it  was  necessary  to  pull  a  tooth, 
and  I  am  glad  it  wasn't  oftener,  for  it  took 
seven  men  to  control  him  and  they  thought 
they  had  done  a  day's  work  when  we  fin 
ished.  The  last  time  he  went  abroad  he  was 

56 


THE    AMOROUS    BABOON 

the  life  of  the  ship,  but  he  pretty  nearly 
killed  himself.  The  doctor  prescribed  a 
cough  medicine  for  him  and  Consul  liked  it 
so  well  that  he  got  up  in  the  night,  after  his 


11  All  of  his  savage  instincts  were  aroused." 

trainer  had  gone  to  sleep,  opened  the  valise 
in  which  it  was  kept  and  emptied  the  bottle. 
I  guess  there  must  have  been  laudanum  in  it, 
for  they  had  to  work  over  him  the  rest  of  the 
night  to  save  him. 

57 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

"He  would  walk  the  deck  with  the  lady 
passengers,  who  made  a  great  deal  of  him, 
and  when  the  customary  concert  was  given, 
nothing  would  do  but  that  he  must  perform 
and  then  pass  the  plate  for  the  collection. 
He  was  in  evening  dress  and  behaved  like  a 
perfect  gentleman,  and  the  collection  was  a 
large  one.  It  was  heaped  on  the  plate,  and  he 
was  just  about  to  present  it  to  the  captain 
when  Booker  Washington  stepped  forward 
to  make  a  contribution.  The  money  for  the 
Seaman's  Home  went  flying  to  the  four  cor 
ners  of  the  salon  and  the  trainer  had  a  diffi 
cult  time  in  persuading  Consul  to  retire 
without  tearing  the  clothes  off  of  the  man 
whose  only  offense  was  his  color.  This  was 
Consul's  last  voyage,  for  he  contracted  pleu 
risy  and  died  in  Berlin,  and  I  felt  worse  over 
his  death  than  I  did  over  the  burning  of  my 
whole  menagerie  in  Baltimore  a  few  years 
ago." 

"Have  you  found  that  early  association 
with  human  beings  makes  the  other  animals 
easier  to  train?"  asked  the  Stranger,  and  the 
Proprietor  shook  his  head. 

58 


THE   AMOROUS    BABOON 

"No;  I  would  rather  train  one  taken  in  the 
jungle  than  an  animal  born  in  captivity. 
They  do  raise  the  pumas  in  South  America 
and  have  them  about  the  houses  as  we  do 
cats;  but  I  wouldn't  trust  one  of  'em.  And 
as  for  the  bigger  cats,  the  lions  and  tigers, 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  taming  them.  They 
may  be  trained  to  do  certain  things,  but  they 
are  never  trustworthy.  We  had  a  queer 
illustration  of  that  when  I  was  traveling 
with  a  caravan  circus  in  France.  One  of  the 
lionesses  had  a  litter  of  three  cubs,  and  in  the 
excitement  of  the  moving  and  strange  sur 
roundings,  she  killed  two  of  them.  We  took 
the  other  one  away  and  the  woman  who 
cooked  for  us  volunteered  to  raise  it.  She 
became  very  much  attached  to  it  and  devel 
oped  the  theory  that  she  could  overcome  its 
savage  instincts  by  diet,  and  for  a  time  it 
looked  as  if  she  were  right.  The  beast  was 
with  her  for  about  two  years  and  grew  to  a 
fine  animal,  but  she  never  let  him  taste  raw 
food.  One  day,  when  he  was  comfortably 
lying  before  the  stove,  she  pushed  him  with 
her  foot  to  get  him  out  of  the  way  and  he 

59 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

resented  it.  Whether  it  was  that  alone,  or 
whether  the  odor  of  meat  which  she  was 
about  to  cook  appealed  to  him,  I  don't  know ; 
but  all  of  his  savage  instincts  were  aroused 
and  when  we  secured  him  we  found  that  he 
had  taken  most  of  her  scalp  off." 

"It's  funny  how  some  people  are  always 
looking  for  a  chance  to  get  damages,"  said 
the  Press  Agent,  settling  himself  comfort 
ably  in  his  chair.  "We  had  a  case  of  it  when 
Merritt  and  I  were  running  a  dime  museum 
out  West.  The  freaks  all  lived  together  at 
a  large  boarding  house  and  one  morning, 
when  they  reported  for  duty,  the  *  Tattooed 
Lady'  was  missing.  It  was  before  the  days 
when  they  were  so  common  and  we  had  spent 
a  lot  of  money  to  have  her  decorated  and 
made  her  our  star  attraction.  Of  course,, 
none  of  the  tattooing  was  visible  when  she 
was  in  street  costume,  but  when  she  sat  on 
the  platform  dressed  in  low  neck  and  short 
skirts  the  lecturer  had  something  to  talk 
about,  for  the  menagerie  pictured  on  her 
was  a  thing  of  beauty,  and  the  few  choice 
texts  like,  'Be  good  and  you  will  be  happy,' 

60 


THE    AMOROUS    HABOOX 

which  were  scattered  in  between  the  animals, 
were  highly  moral  and  elevating,  and  that 
was  one  of  the  strong  points  of  our  show. 


"  A  '  Tattooed  Lady,'  and  she's  all 
covered  with  picters." 


Merritt  used  to  spread  himself  when  he  was 
telling  how  she  was  shipwrecked  on  a  desert 
island  and  held  captive  by  the  cruel  canni 
bals,  whose  high  priests  spared  her  from  the 

61 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

menu  to  tattoo  her  with  the  symbols  of  their 
heathenish  worship.  It  gave  him  a  great 
chance  to  come  in  strong  on  the  moral  part, 
when  he  explained  about  the  texts  and  told 
how  they  were  added  after  the  cannibals  had 
been  converted  to  red  flannel  shirts,  silk  hats 
and  a  vegetable  diet,  by  the  missionaries,  and 
I  have  seen  ancient  maiden  ladies  moved  to 
tears  by  his  recital.  So  when  he  had  to  give 
his  lecture  without  her,  he  got  mixed  up  and 
called  attention  to  the  marvelous  growth  of 
hair  on  the  face  of  the  'Circassian  Beauty,' 
thinking  she  was  the  'Bearded  Lady,'  and 
nearly  pulled  the  ears  off  of  the  'Dog  Faced 
Boy,'  trying  to  explain  that  he  was  'The 
Man  With  The  Rubber  Skin.'  Of  course, 
that  made  trouble  among  the  freaks,  who 
are  a  mighty  touchy  lot  anyway,  and  I  have 
noticed  that  trouble  always  comes  in  bunches 
in  the  show  business,  so  I  wasn't  surprised 
when  a  husky  guy  that  looked  like  a  farmer 
came  in  with  blood  in  his  eye  and  asked  for 
the  manager.  I  looked  around  for  Mer- 
ritt,  but  he  had  gone  around  the  corner 
to  get  something  to  drown  his  sorrow,  so 

62 


THE   AMOROUS    BABOON 

I  slipped  a  piece  of  lead  pipe  under  my 
coat  and  acknowledged  the  soft  impeach 
ment. 

"  'Look'ee  here,  wot  kinder  a  skin  game 
be  youse  fellers  runnin'  here?'  says  the  guy, 
and  I  took  a  good  grip  on  the  lead  pipe  and 
tried  to  turn  away  wrath  by  a  soft  answer, 
and  quoting  from  our  advertisement  that  it 
was  a  highly  moral  and  intellectual  enter 
tainment. 

"  'Not  by  a  dern  sight,  it  ain't,'  says  he. 
'It's  a  blasted  man-trap  to  ketch  the  unwary, 
an'  I'll  have  the  law  on  ye  an'  make  yer  pay 
fer  trifling  with  my  young  affections.'  I 
have  had  some  pretty  tough  things  said  to 
me  in  my  day,  but  that  was  about  the  worst 
ever,  and  pretty  nearly  took  my  breath 
away,  but  he  went  right  on. 

"  'I  deliver  milk  to  that  boardin'  house 
down  the  street  an'  I  see  a  likely  lookin'  gal 
there  lately  an'  I  wanted  some  one  to  help 
milk  an'  look  after  the  house,  so  I  asks  her 
to  marry  me.  She  says  she  will,  so  we 
hitched  up  an'  I  never  knew  she  was  one  o' 
yer  dern  freaks  until  it  was  too  late.  She 

63 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

says  she's  a  "Tattooed  Lady,"  an'  she's  all 
covered  with  picters.' 

"  Well,  what's  the  matter  with  'em?'  says 
I.  'Aren't  they  good  pictures?* 

"'Good  enough,'  says  he,  'for  them  as 
likes  'on;  but  I  don't  hanker  after  no  deco 
rations  o'  that  kind  an',  b'gosh,  I'll  make  yer 
pay  f  er  palmin'  oft'  a  damaged  article  on  me. 
She's  all  over  snakes  an'  other  beasts  an'  it 
makes  me  sick  ter  my  stummick  every  time  I 
thinks  of  'em.'  I  tried  to  convince  him  that 
we  were  not  responsible  and  that  it  was  his 
wife's  duty  to  have  informed  him. 

"  'That's  what  I  told  her,  dod  gast  her! 
But  she  says  it's  my  own  fault  if  I  didn't 
know  she  was  a  "Tattooed  Lady,"  because  I 
never  asked  her,  an'  blamed  if  she  isn't 
proud  o'  them  picters,  too.' ' 

'  How  did  you  settle  it — did  he  get  dam 
ages?"  asked  the  Stranger. 

"Damages! "  exclaimed  the  Press  Agent 
as  he  wiped  the  foam  from  his  moustache, 
''Why,  Merritt  came  in,  and  when  he  heard 
the  guy's  kick  he  lit  right  into  him. 

'"Blame  vour  skin!*  he  veiled.     'I've  a 


THE    AMOROUS    GABOON 

good  mind  to  have  you  arrested  for  stealing 
the  pictures  from  my  art  gallery.  I  have 
a  claim  on  'em,  for  I  paid  for  the  liquor  to 
keep  a  sailor  drunk  for  six  weeks  while  he 
was  doing  that  job.'  The  Kube  got  onto  the 
fact  that  she  was  valuable,  so  they  ad 
journed  to  a  saloon  to  talk  it  over." 

"With  what  result?"  asked  the  Proprie 
tor,  as  he  rose  from  the  table. 

"Well,  Merritt  got  her  back  on  the  plat 
form,  the  Kube  sold  his  farm,  and  within 
six  weeks  he  was  wearing  more  yellow  dia 
monds  and  throwing  a  bigger  chest  than  the 
husband  of  a  grand  opera  prima  donna." 


65 


FEEDING  THE   SERPENTS 

AND 
A  GRAND  TRANSFORMATION 


FEEDING   THE   SERPENTS 

AND 
A   GRAND  TRANSFORMATION 


THE  animals  had  received  their  even 
ing  meal  when  the  Proprietor  came 
from  the  Arena  and  joined  the 
Stranger  and  the  Press  Agent  at  the  table 
outside. 

"I  can  never  understand  the  interest  peo 
ple  take  in  seeing  the  carnivorous  animals 
fed;  it  is  no  more  than  giving  a  bone  to  a 
dog,"  he  said,  as  he  took  his  seat.  "And  yet 
it  is  one  of  the  best  drawing  features  of  the 
show,  and  the  same  people  remain  night 
after  night  to  see  the  meat  poked  into  the 
cages.  If  it  were  not  for  the  prohibition  of 
the  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to 
Animals  I  could  give  a  feeding  exhibition 
which  would  be  novel  and  interesting,  for 
comparatively  few  people  have  ever  seen  a 
snake  eat. 

"It  is  because  a  snake  will  not  eat  unless 
69 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

it  kills  its  own  food,"  he  continued  in  answer 
to  a  question  from  the  Stranger.  "Snakes 
are  more  particular  feeders  than  any  other 
animals,  and  they  will  not  touch  anything 
which  is  not  alive  when  it  is  brought  to  them. 
This  is  the  night  for  feeding  them,  and  if 
you  care  to  remain  until  the  crowd  has  gone 
you  can  see  how  it  is  done.  Long  as  I  have 
been  in  the  business,  I  learn  something  new 
every  day,  and  I  never  saw  a  cobra  fed  arti 
ficially  until  last  week,  when  Brandu,  my 
Hindoo  snake  charmer,  received  one  direct 
from  India.  It  seems  that  they  are  cannibal 
snakes  and  live  upon  their  own  kind  in  India, 
but  that  would  be  too  expensive  a  diet  here, 
and  he  forces  feed  down  its  throat." 

The  thousands  of  incandescent  lights  on 
the  Dreamland  tower  went  out — the  signal 
that  the  barkers  might  cease  from  barking 
and  the  spielers  spiel  no  more — until  the 
morrow  brought  its  fresh  crowd  of  amuse 
ment  seekers,  and  the  Proprietor  led  the  way 
into  the  Arena.  Brandu  and  his  two  native 
assistants  were  carrying  the  boxes  which 
contained  the  snakes  into  the  big  exhibition 

70 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

cage,  and,  when  the  three  men  joined  them, 
the  weirdness  of  the  surroundings  made  a 
profound  impression  upon  the  Stranger. 
All  of  the  lights  in  the  Arena  were  extin 
guished,  with  the  exception  of  the  small 
cluster  directly  over  their  heads,  and  pairs  of 
luminous  spots  from  the  great  semi-circle  of 
cages  at  the  outer  edge  of  the  building  re 
minded  him  that  the  human  beings  in  the 
cage  were  not  the  only  interested  spectators 
of  the  proceedings. 

The  assistants  carefully  removed  the 
great  boas  and  pythons  from  the  boxes,  lay 
ing  them  on  the  floor,  where  they  crawled 
lazily  about,  their  delicate  forked  tongues 
vibrating  like  streaks  of  red  flame,  while 
Brandu  removed  a  slat  from  a  crate  of  rab 
bits  and  put  a  half-dozen  of  them  on  the 
floor.  The  little  animals  had  no  instinctive 
fear  of  the  serpents,  for  they  hopped  about 
among  them  and  over  their  wriggling  bodies 
unconcernedly,  but  the  snakes  were  hungry 
after  a  fast  of  two  weeks  and  they  wasted 
no  time  in  getting  to  the  business  before 
them.  The  proceeding  was  the  same  in  each 

72 


FEEDING    THE    SERPENTS 

case.  A  serpent  would  crawl  up  to  the  rab 
bit  and  place  its  nose,  at  which  the  little 
furry  beast  would  sniff  curiously,  close  to 
that  of  its  prospective  supper.  The  red 
forked  tongue  would  pass  rapidly  over  its 
face  and  the  rabbit  made  no  attempt  to 
move.  Whether  it  was  the  effect  of  some 
anaesthetic  quality  in  the  breath  of  the  snake 
or  the  traditional  charm  of  the  serpent,  it 
was  hard  to  say,  but  the  rabbit  made  no 
move  to  escape.  Slowly  but  surely  it  yielded 
to  the  fascination  of  the  snake,  the  large 
transparent  ears  dropped  to  the  side  of  the 
head  and  the  body  muscles  relaxed  until  the 
tickling  of  the  serpent's  tongue  caused  no 
reflex  movement  of  the  paws. 

The  snake  then  carefully  withdrew  its 
head  until  the  slim  neck  was  in  the  form  of 
a  letter  S,  and  when  it  again  straightened 
out  it  was  with  the  force  of  a  released  steel 
spring  and  the  aim  of  the  flat  head  was  un 
erring.  The  stroke  was  so  rapid  that  it  was 
difficult  for  the  eye  to  follow  and  the  rabbit 
never  knew  what  happened,  for  its  body 
made  a  quick  circle  in  the  air  and  in  less  than 

pvo 

,  •' 


FEEDING  THE   SERPENTS 

AND 
A  GRAND  TRANSFORMATION 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

a  second  all  that  was  to  be  seen  was  one  small 
paw  protruding  from  the  coiled  body  which 
had  brought  it  a  quick  and  merciful  death. 
The  jaws  of  the  serpent  have  seized  it  by  the 
snout  and  thrown  it  back  into  its  coils  and 
the  first  pressure  kills  it,  although  the  ever 
tightening  embrace  continues  until  the  bones 
are  crushed  within  the  unbroken  skin,  so  that 
it  can  be  easily  swallowed. 

It  is  not  swallowing  in  the  ordinary  sense 
of  the  word,  for  the  snakes  pull  themselves 
over  the  rabbits  as  a  glove  is  pulled  over  the 
finger,  and  the  progress  to  the  stomach  can 
be  watched  through  the  length  of  the 
snake's  neck.  The  snakes  which  were  too 
small  to  manage  a  rabbit  were  fed  on  white 
rats  and  mice,  but  the  process  was  the  same 
in  each  case,  except  that  the  Hindoos  held 
the  rodents  by  their  tails  until  the  snakes 
had  hypnotized  them. 

"I  suppose  that  this  seems  cruel  to  people 
because  the  rabbits  are  such  harmless  little 
beasts,"  said  the  Proprietor  as  the  last  bit 
of  fur  disappeared.  "To  my  mind  it  is  not 
half  so  cruel  as  hunting  hares  with  guns  and 

74 


"Brought  the  head  of  the  cobra  close  to  his  face.' 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

dogs,  for  death  from  the  snake's  hlow  is  as 
quick  and  painless  as  that  from  a  bullet,  and 
there  are  no  maimed  and  wounded  animals 
to  drag  themselves  away  to  lingering  deaths 
in  hiding.  But  now  I  will  show  you  some 
thing  which  has  never  been  known  in  this 
country." 

One  of  the  natives  brought  out  a  curi 
ously  woven  circular  basket  which  he  han 
dled  with  great  care,  and  setting  it  in  the 
middle  of  the  cage  retired  to  a  respectful 
distance.  Brandu  crouched  on  the  floor  be 
side  it,  and,  although  the  performance  was 
not  accompanied  by  the  weird  Oriental 
music  which  signaled  the  public  appearances 
of  the  snake  charmer,  the  tense  expression 
of  his  face  and  the  uncanniness  of  the  sur 
roundings  made  it  sufficiently  impressive, 
for  he  was  about  to  handle  the  cobra  de 
capello,  the  most  venomous  snake  in  all  the 
great  collection.  He  wasted  no  time  in  the 
pantomime  and  incantation  of  the  ring  per 
formance,  but  quickly  threw  off  the  cover, 
and  when  the  hooded  head  arose  swaying 
above  the  edge  of  the  basket,  he  started  a 

76 


FEEDING    THE    SERPENTS 

low  whistling  and  passed  his  slim  brown 
hands  with  lightning  rapidity  above  it.  He 
was  absolutely  fearless,  but  the  task  before 
him  demanded  the  concentration  of  all  his 
thoughts  and  he  seemed  unconscious  of  the 
startling  interruption  of  a  fight  between 
two  of  the  lions,  and  the  shouts  and  pistol- 
shots  of  the  keepers  who  separated  them. 

He  never  removed  his  gaze  from  the  head 
of  the  serpent  and  his  hands  moved  so  rap 
idly  that  they  were  almost  invisible  until, 
quicker  than  a  snake  could  strike,  one  of 
them  darted  down  and  caught  the  slim  neck 
behind  the  distended  hood.  He  gave  a 
sharp  exclamation  of  triumph  and  sprang 
to  his  feet,  the  cobra  coiling  its  body  about 
his  bare  brown  arm  and  giving  every  indi 
cation  of  rage. 

"I  am  always  glad  when  that  part  of  the 
performance  is  over,"  said  the  Proprietor 
with  a  sigh  of  relief.  "Of  course,  it  is  all  in 
the  day's  work  with  Brandu  and  he  has  done 
it  thousands  of  times,  but  some  day  he  will 
be  a  fraction  of  a  second  too  slow  and  then 
— well,  I  shall  have  to  get  another  snake 

77 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

charmer.  Watch  him  now  and  you  will  see 
something  which  only  the  men  of  his  caste 
can  do." 

Brandu's  white  teeth  glistened  as  he 
smiled  at  the  Proprietor  and  pointed  first  to 
his  own  eyes  and  then  to  those  of  the  ser 
pent.  He  brought  the  head  of  the  cobra 
close  to  his  face,  his  expression  became  fixed 
and  stern  and  the  pupils  of  his  widely 
opened  eyes,  which  had  been  dilated  until 
the  iris  was  but  a  narrow  rim,  contracted  to 
the  size  of  pin  heads.  The  cobra  gazed  at 
him  fixedly  and  the  tense  body  slowly  un 
coiled  from  his  arm  and  hung  limp  and  mo 
tionless,  and  Brandu  laid  it  on  the  floor  as 
lifeless  and  inert  as  a  piece  of  rope.  One  of 
his  assistants  handed  him  a  glass  containing 
a  couple  of  raw  eggs  and,  handling  it  as 
carelessly  as  if  it  were  a  harmless  garter 
snake,  he  picked  up  the  cobra  and  forced  a 
tube  of  polished  bamboo  between  its  jaws. 
When  he  had  poured  the  eggs  through  the 
tube  he  withdrew  it  and  carefully  replaced 
the  snake  in  the  basket,  still  apparently  life 
less;  but  bending  over  he  blew  sharply  into 

78 


You're  a  blame  fine  figure  of  a  fat 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

its  face  and  the  cobra  was  instantly  reani 
mated  into  five  feet  of  viciousness.  Its  head 
reared  up  above  the  edge,  the  spectacled 
hood  distended  in  anger,  but  Brandu 
quickly  clapped  on  the  cover  and  the  snake 
feeding  was  finished  for  two  weeks. 

"That  is  a  great  performance  of  Bran- 
du's,"  said  the  Press  Agent,  "but  it  profits 
us  nothing  because  the  best  part  of  it  can 
not  be  shown  to  the  public.  I  never  see  a 
snake  fed  without  thinking  of  something 
which  happened  when  I  was  running  a  side 
show  with  the  Greatest  Show  on  Earth. 

"You  know  that  the  dime  museum  busi 
ness  was  run  to  death  while  the  craze  lasted 
in  this  country,  and  freaks  got  so  common 
that  you  couldn't  throw  a  stone  in  the  streets 
of  any  large  city  without  hitting  one  of  'em. 
When  the  fickle  public  tired  of  giving  up 
its  dimes  to  see  'em,  a  guy  named  Merritt 
and  myself  had  a  choice  collection  on  hand, 
and  we  went  on  the  road  with  the  big  show 
for  the  summer,  thinking  perhaps  our  busi 
ness  would  pick  up  in  the  fall.  Our  two 
great  attractions  were  the  biggest  boa-con- 

80 


FEEDING    THE    SERPENTS 

stricter  in  captivity,  which  we  called  'Joint- 
less  Jake,'  and  the  heaviest  fat  man  in  the 
world.  That  snake  was  about  two  hundred 
feet  long,  and  \vhile  the  fat  man  wasn't 
much  on  length,  he  held  the  record  for  belt 
measurement.  Nine  hundred  and  twenty- 
seven  pounds  he  weighed,  as  we  demon 
strated  on  our  own  scales  at  every  perform 
ance.  Their  feed  bill  was  quite  an  item,  as 
the  snake  took  a  half-dozen  sheep  every  two 
weeks  and  the  fat  man,  wrho  was  billed  as 
'Signor  Adipose  Avoirdupois' — Merritt  in 
vented  that — needed  about  a  side  of  beef 
every  day. 

"Freaks  are  a  jealous  lot  and  as  hard  to 
manage  as  rival  prima  donnas,  and  these 
two  monstrosities  came  to  hate  each  other 
like  poison.  They  were  in  different  lines, 
but  you  may  have  noticed  that  the  side  show 
'professor'  uses  up  most  of  the  superlatives 
in  the  English  language  when  he  gives  his 
lecture,  and  each  of  'em  seemed  afraid  that 
the  other  would  get  some  of  his  share  of  the 
dictionary.  Adipose  used  to  look  at  Jake's 
coiled  body  as  if  he  would  like  to  sit  on  it 
81 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

and  flatten  it  out,  and  the  snake  would  re 
turn  the  glance  with  a  naughty  little  twinkle 
in  its  eye,  as  if  he  was  estimating  how  much 
it  would  have  to  stretch  its  skin  to  accommo 
date  A.  A.  in  its  interior,  until  it  made  Mer- 
ritt  anxious  about  'em. 

"  'That  blame  fat  fool  will  waste  away 
and  spoil  his  shape,  if  he  don't  stop  worry 
ing,'  he  says,  and  he  cuts  a  lot  of  his  talk  out 
of  the  description  of  the  snake  and  uses  the 
words  on  Adipose.  Maybe  you  think 
snakes  are  stupid,  but  they  aren't,  and  the 
boa  got  the  hump  and  refused  to  uncoil  him 
self  to  show  his  length  unless  he  got  his  full 
share  of  the  spiel.  It  cheered  Avoirdupois 
up,  though,  and  when  we  moved  to  the  next 
town  he  stood  around  to  gloat  over  Jake 
when  he  was  being  moved  from  the  travel 
ing  box  to  the  exhibition  cage.  The  snake 
hadn't  been  fed  for  ten  days  and  he  was 
good  and  lively  as  well  as  being  out  of  tem 
per,  so  when  he  caught  sight  of  the  Signor 
he  scattered  the  boys  with  one  flip  of  his 
tail  and  went  for  him. 

"I've  heard  of  bear  hugs,  but  I  never  saw 
82 


FEEDING    THE    SERPENTS 

such  a  squeezing  as  that  boa  gave  poor  Adi 
pose.  It  was  a  long  way  around  him,  but 
the  snake  made  about  a  dozen  wraps  and  all 
we  could  see  of  the  fat  man  was  a  pair  of 
feet  sticking  out  at  one  end  of  the  coil  and 
his  face,  which  looked  like  a  purple  harvest 
moon,  projecting  from  the  other.  Jake 
reaches  out  and  gets  hold  of  a  tent  peg  with 
his  tail,  which  gives  him  a  purchase,  and  then 
he  tightens  up  for  fair  and  Adipose  lets  out 
a  holler  you  could  hear  a  mile. 

"Of  course,  we  got  busy  with  crowbars 
and  jackscrews  and  tried  to  pry  Jake  off, 
but  there  was  nothing  doing  and  the  harder 
we  pried  the  closer  he  cinched  up  on  Adi 
pose.  Merritt  usually  had  a  suggestion  to 
make,  so  I  looked  at  him  and  he  was  lost  in 
thought,  but  in  a  minute  he  brightens  up 
and  calls  for  a  rope. 

'We  can't  pry  the  blame  snake  away 
from  the  man/  says  he,  as  he  tied  the  rope 
around  the  Signer's  feet,  'so  we'll  try  to 
pull  the  man  away  from  the  snake.'  All 
hands  fell  to  and  pulled  to  beat  four  of 
a  kind,  but  Jake  just  tightened  up  a  bit 
83 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

and  grinned  and  Adipose  let  out  another 
holler. 

'You  need  a  traction  engine  on  that 
rope,'  says  I  when  they  gave  it  up  as  a  bad 
job,  and  Merritt,  who  was  looking  a  little 
discouraged,  gave  a  whoop. 

'  'Bring  an  elephant,'  he  yelled,  and  when 
one  of  the  boys  started  off  on  a  run  for  the 
menagerie,  he  called  after  him  to  'make 
that  order  two  elephants.'  The  Hathis  came 
lumbering  over,  and  Merritt  tied  the  rope 
around  the  shoulders  of  one  and  put  another 
rope  around  Jake's  neck  and  the  shoulders 
of  the  other  elephant. 

"  'Now  pull,  blame  you !'  says  he,  heading 
'em  in  different  directions  and  giving  one  of 
'em  a  kick,  and  they  put  their  shoulders 
against  the  ropes.  It  was  a  mighty  interest 
ing  performance  to  every  one  but  Adipose , 
who  didn't  seem  to  enjoy  it  at  all,  judging 
from  the  yells  he  let  out.  Jake  was  having 
the  time  of  his  life,  and  the  harder  the  ele 
phants  pulled  the  tighter  he  squeezed  the 
Signor,  and  when  he  felt  that  they  were  get- 
ing  the  better  of  him  he  made  a  supreme 

84 


FEEDING    THE    SERPENTS 

effort  which  kinked  up  every  muscle  in  his 
body.  But  there  was  no  holding  on  against 
those  brutes,  and  pretty  soon  the  fat  man 
commenced  to  slip  out  from  the  coils,  feet 
first.  It  was  a  queer  thing  to  watch  and  his 
legs  stretched  so  that  I  thought  his  knees 
would  never  come  into  sight.  His  legs  had 
been  about  the  size  of  barrels  when  the  snake 
grabbed  him,  but  between  the  stretching  and 
the  squeezing  they  were  now  three  times  as 
long  and  about  as  large  as  broomsticks.  He 
weighed  as  much  as  ever  when  the  elephants 
finally  got  him  out,  but  the  flesh  was  distrib 
uted  differently  and  instead  of  being  six 
feet  tall  and  twelve  feet  around,  he  was 
twelve  feet  long  and  built  in  proportion. 
The  snake  was  up  against  it,  too,  for  he  had 
cramped  himself  so  with  that  last  squeeze 
that  he  couldn't  straighten  out  the  kinks, 
and  he  kept  in  the  same  shape  as  when  he 
was  wrapped  around  the  Signor.  We  tried 
to  straighten  him  out,  but  it  was  no  use;  he 
just  stayed  coiled  up  like  a  spring  and  the 
boys  rolled  him  around  as  if  he  were  a 
barrel. 

85 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

"Merritt  had  kept  cheerful  as  long  as 
there  was  anything  to  be  done,  but  tears 
came  to  his  eyes  when  he  looked  at  Adipose. 
The  Signor  was  standing  up,  gazing  at  his 
feet,  which  he  hadn't  seen  before  in  twenty 
years,  and  Merritt  looked  up  at  him  and 
freed  his  mind. 

4 You're  a  blame  fine  figure  of  a  fat  man, 
aren't  you,  now?'  says  he.  'Just  on  account 
of  your  confounded  professional  jealousy 
we  lose  our  two  star  attractions,  for  that 
blamed  snake  is  so  kinked  up  that  he  isn't 
good  for  anything  except  to  cut  up  into 
barrel  hoops.' 

"The  Signor  was  ashamed  of  himself  and 
hadn't  a  word  to  say,  so  he  just  kept  quiet 
and  tried  to  get  used  to  his  new  shape  and 
taking  a  bird's-eye  view  of  things.  Mer 
ritt  and  I  were  feeling  pretty  blue  when 
along  comes  Tody  Hamilton,  the  circus 
press  agent,  and  as  soon  as  he  saw  what 
had  happened  he  made  a  run  for  a  trolley 
car. 

"  'Don't  let  'em  get  away!'  he  yelled  back 
over  his  shoulder.  'This  is  the  biggest  scoop 

86 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

on  record  and  I'm  off  for  the  printing- 
office.' 

"  'It'll  make  a  good  newspaper  story,  all 
right;  but  where  do  we  come  in  on  it?'  says 
Merritt,  looking  mournfully  at  Adipose. 

"Well,  a  couple  of  hours  later  I  had  to  go 
into  the  city  to  order  some  new  togs  for  the 
Signor,  who  looked  as  if  he  were  dressed  in 
a  particularly  baggy  bathing  suit  since  he 
had  been  stretched  out,  and  the  first  thing 
I  saw  was  a  procession  of  sandwich  men 
marching  down  the  street.  The  ink  wasn't 
dry  on  the  posters,  but  Tody  had  been  busy, 
and  there  in  flaming  red  letters  was  the  an 
nouncement — 

JUST  ARRIVED  AT  THE 
BIG  SHOW! 

DON'T  MISS  SEEING  THEM!  !  ! 

LENGTHY  LOUIS,  THE  TALLEST 
MAN  IN  THE  UNIVERSE!  !  ! 

CIRCULAR   SAM,  THE   MOST  GI 
GANTIC  HOOP  SNAKE  EVER 
CAPTURED! ! ! 


88 


THE   LIONESS    SKIRT  DANCE 

AND  THE 
INCONSIDERATE   PYTHON 


THE   LIONESS   SKIRT   DANCE 

AND   THE 
INCONSIDERATE   PYTHON 


THE  conventional  skirt  dance  has  long 
ceased  to  be  a  novelty  on  the  vaude 
ville  stage,  but  as  it  is  performed  by 
"La  Belle  Selica"  in  the  Arena  at  Dream 
land  it  holds  the  interest  of  that  most 
exacting  audience — a  crowd  of  Coney 
Island  pleasure  seekers.  It  is  not  because 
Selica  is  pre-eminent  among  dancers,  but  on 
account  of  the  unusual  and  dangerous  stage 
setting;  for  she  performs  in  the  large  exhi 
bition  cage,  surrounded  by  a  half  dozen  lion 
esses,  each  animal  seated  on  a  separate  ped 
estal.  Any  one  of  the  huge  beasts  could 
crush  the  dancer  with  a  single  blow  of  a 
massive  paw,  and  the  great  jaws  which  snap 
viciously  at  her  tiny  feet  as  she  kicks  them 
before  their  faces  are  sufficiently  powerful 
to  crush  the  shin-bone  of  an  ox. 

She  is  apparently  without  fear  of  them, 
91 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

for  she  dances  gracefully  from  one  to  the 
other,  flicking  them  across  their  faces  with 
the  light  switch  which  she  carries  for  her 
only  protection,  and  kicking  over  their 
heads  and  into  their  very  mouths,  always 
missing  the  answering  snap  of  the  jaws  by 
the  fraction  of  an  inch,  and  acknowledging 
it  with  a  smile  as  she  whirls  away  to  repeat 
the  performance  before  another  pedestal. 
The  lionesses  see  the  performance  many 
times  in  the  course  of  a  season,  but  they 
never  lose  interest  in  it  and  they  do  not  re 
move  their  eyes  from  Selica  from  the  time 
she  enters  the  cage  until  she  drives  them  out 
before  her.  So  long  as  she  is  on  her  feet  and 
agile  enough  to  escape  the  swift  stroke  of  a 
paw  or  the  snapping  jaws,  she  is  safe;  for 
a  lioness  would  not  jump  at  her  from  a 
pedestal ;  but  there  is  always  the  chance  of  a 

slip  or  a  false  step  and  then !!! 

It  happened  once,  and  caused  a  suspen 
sion  of  Selica's  performance  for  two  months 
during  the  Pan-American  Exposition  at 
Buffalo,  for  Grace,  the  largest  lioness,  was 
on  her  before  she  could  recover  herself;  and 

92 


THE    LIONESS    SKIRT    DANCE 

it  required  the  efforts  of  Bostock  and  all  of 
his  trainers  to  beat  back  the  beasts  who  were 
maddened  by  the  sight  and  smell  of  blood 


"Now,  if  you'll  kindly  give  me  your  attention." 

and  to  rescue  the  unconscious  woman  from 
the  cage.  They  have  never  forgotten  that 
moment  of  rebellion  which  was  so  nearly 
successful,  and  they  are  ever  watchful  for 
another  opportunity  to  avenge  the  many 
93 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

cuts  of  the  training  whip  which  they  re 
ceived  in  the  course  of  their  schooling.  But 
Selica  is  also  watchful,  and  although  Grace 
had  latterly  done  nothing  particularly  out 
of  the  way,  the  wonderful  sixth  sense  which 
experienced  trainers  always  acquire  warned 
her  that  the  animal  should  be  regarded  with 
suspicion.  The  beast  had  become  nervous; 
a  little  more  sullen  than  usual  when  ordered 
to  leave  her  den  for  the  exhibition  cage,  and 
a  trifle  slow  and  rebellious  when  told  to 
jump  up  on  her  allotted  pedestal. 

Constant  association  with  the  wild  ani 
mals  begets  carelessness  but  Selica,  with  the 
scars  of  Grace's  sharp  claws  still  visible  on 
her  back  and  shoulders,  was  quick  to  notice 
the  change  and  especially  careful,  before 
opening  the  door  from  the  den  to  the  run 
way,  to  look  through  the  observation  hole 
and  make  sure  that  the  lioness  was  not 
crouched  for  a  spring.  Grace  had  been  par 
ticularly  sullen  in  the  afternoon  and  she  was 
growling  ominously  when  Selica  went  to 
get  her  for  the  evening  performance,  but 
when  the  woman  saw  the  three  little  furry 

94 


THE    LIONESS    SKIRT    DANCE 

balls  which  were  huddled  in  a  corner  of  the 
den  she  understood  and  forgave  all.  The 
cubs  were  no  larger  than  St.  Bernard  pup 
pies,  but  Grace  apparently  considered  them 
worth  fighting  for;  and  Selica's  dance  was 
given  that  night  with  only  five  lionesses  in 
the  cage,  and  the  Proprietor  told  the 
Stranger  the  reason  for  the  empty  pedestal. 

"Wait  until  after  the  performance  and  I 
will  take  them  out  of  the  cage  and  show 
them  to  you,"  he  said ;  and  the  Stranger,  re 
membering  a  tradition  to  the  effect  that 
robbing  a  lioness  of  her  cubs  is  a  dangerous 
feat,  looked  forward  with  a  great  deal  of 
interest  to  the  after-piece. 

"We  can't  trust  the  rearing  of  the  cubs  to 
Grace,"  said  the  Proprietor,  as  he  stood  in 
front  of  her  cage  after  the  audience  had 
been  dismissed.  "The  close  proximity  of 
the  other  animals  in  the  Arena  and  the  curi 
osity  of  the  thousands  of  people  who  come 
here  every  day  would  make  her  so  crazy  that 
she  would  destroy  them,  so  I  must  get  them 
a  foster  mother.  I  have  sent  to  New  York 
for  a  bitch  with  pups,  and  in  a  couple  of  days 
95 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

I  will  show  you  a  happy  family."  The  cubs 
were  in  the  center  of  the  cage  and  Grace 
stood  over  them,  snarling  and  looking  with 
blazing  eyes  at  the  group  in  front  of  it ;  but 
Selica's  voice  from  the  runway  and  a  rat 
tling  of  the  door  at  the  back  distracted  her 
attention,  and  as  she  sprang  at  the  door  the 
Proprietor  darted  a  hand  between  the  bars 
and  seized  one  of  the  cubs,  drawing  it  safely 
out  a  half  second  before  the  enraged  mother 
landed  against  the  bars  with  a  force  which 
made  them  rattle. 

The  poor  beast  was  almost  frantic,  but 
the  same  maneuver  was  twice  repeated,  and 
in  spite  of  her  fierce  attacks  on  doors  and 
bars  the  Proprietor,  who  had  acquired 
through  his  lifetime  association  with  the 
great  cats  as  much  of  their  quickness  of 
movement  as  it  is  given  to  mere  man  to 
learn,  removed  the  three  cubs  without  re 
ceiving  a  scratch. 

Poor  helpless  little  creatures  they  were, 
and  it  was  difficult  to  realize  that  they  would 
soon  grow  into  beasts  as  powerful  as  the 
ferocious  Baltimore,  the  terror  of  trainers, 

96 


THE    LIONESS    SKIRT    DANCE 

who  was  answering  Grace's  lamentations 
with  roars  which  fairly  shook  the  building, 
from  his  cage  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Arena. 


"Looked  like  the  pennant  of  a  man-o'-war." 

"That  animal  was  bred  in  captivity,  born 
and  raised  in  our  menagerie  in  England," 
said  the  Proprietor  after  he  had  placed  the 
cubs  in  charge  of  one  of  the  keepers.  "I 

97 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

suppose  that's  what  makes  him  such  a  bad 
beggar  to  handle.  Give  me  the  jungle-bred 
lion  to  train,  every  time,  for  after  the  man 
handling  and  discomfort  of  his  capture  and 
transportation  to  the  coast  by  the  natives, 
he  appreciates  the  care  and  humanity  of  a 
civilized  trainer.  These  cubs  which  are 
raised  in  captivity  are  always  played  with 
and  teased  by  the  employees  and  visitors, 
and  their  first  knowledge  of  their  strength 
comes  to  them  accidentally  when  they  hurt 
a  man  without  meaning  to  do  it;  but  they 
soon  learn  to  connect  cause  and  effect,  and 
then  it  is  time  to  watch  out  for  'em.  A 
jungle-bred  lion  is  pretty  much  cock  o'  the 
walk  until  he  is  snared  or  trapped,  and  in  his 
first  experience  with  men  he  is  vanquished 
and  realizes  how  useless  is  his  great  strength 
against  the  nets  and  ropes  which  entangle 
him.  The  cub  born  in  captivity  is  familiar 
with  men  from  the  first,  and  plays  with  them 
like  a  kitten  until  one  day  he  is  out  of  sorts 
or  is  accidentally  hurt  in  a  frolic  and  the 
swift  cut  of  his  razor-like  claws  makes  his 
playmate  or  tormentor  drop  him  and  leave 

98 


THE    LIONESS    SKIRT    DANCE 

him  in  peace.  That  makes  it  hard  for  the 
trainer  when  he  takes  him  in  hand,  for  al 
though  the  cub  may  be  subdued,  he  remem 
bers  that  he  was  once  victorious  and  watches 
his  chance.  Jack  Bonavita,  the  greatest 
trainer  who  ever  went  into  a  lion's  cage, 
would  have  two  good  arms  to-day  if  Balti 
more  had  been  born  in  the  Nubian  desert 
instead  of  in  Manchester." 

They  stood  in  front  of  Baltimore's  cage 
for  a  moment,  admiring  the  swelling  mus 
cles  of  the  great  beast  as  he  sprang  from 
side  to  side,  shaking  his  shaggy  mane  and 
roaring  defiance  at  the  world,  and  then 
turned  to  go  to  the  white-topped  table  in 
front  of  the  Arena.  In  the  doorway  they 
met  the  Press  Agent,  looking  anything  but 
cheerful  and  muttering  maledictions  on  the 
heads  of  all  city  editors.  The  Proprietor 
told  him  of  the  new  arrivals  in  the  Arena, 
and  suggested  sending  the  announcement 
of  the  birth  to  the  papers. 

"A  fat  chance  I'd  stand  of  having  it 
printed,"  he  grumbled.  "Here  I've  worked 
half  the  season  and  never  given  'em  a  story 

99 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

that  wasn't  pretty  nearly  true,  and  to-day 
when  I  take  them  that  account  of  Morelli 
and  the  jaguar  they  turn  me  down  and 
holler  'f  ake.'  Let  me  take  one  of  those  cubs 
and  stripe  it  over  with  a  little  black  paint, 
and  to-morrow  morning  every  newspaper  in 
New  York  will  have  a  photographer  down 
here  to  take  pictures  of  'the  only  hybrid 
lion-tiger  cub  ever  born,'  and  all  of  the  space 
jerkers  will  be  buttonholing  me  for  a  three 
column,  front  page  story." 

The  arrival  of  the  waiter  with  soothing 
beverages  soon  brought  back  the  customary 
smile  to  his  genial  face  and  the  Proprietor's 
suggestion  that  perhaps  he  had  embroidered 
some  of  the  stories  just  a  trifle,  aroused  only 
a  good-natured  protest. 

"The  worst  thing  about  the  press  agent's 
profession  is  that  he  has  to  risk  his  eternal 
salvation  by  making  up  plausible  lies  to  sat 
isfy  the  newspapers  when  he  could  give  'em 
better  stories  which  are  actually  true  if  they 
would  take  'em  on  his  say  so,"  he  said,  as  he 
wiped  the  froth  from  his  mustache.  "I  re 
member  once  when  a  guy  named  Merritt 
100 


"Kicking  over  their  heads  and  into  their  very  mouths. 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

and  myself  were  running  a  snake  show  in 
New  York  that  we  couldn't  pay  the  rent 
because  the  papers  wouldn't  give  us  any 
publicity,  although  we  had  the  finest  collec 
tion  of  wrigglers  that  was  ever  gotten  to 
gether.  We  were  running  it  on  the  dead 
level,  nary  a  fake  about  it,  and  Merritt's  lec 
ture  was  highly  instructive  and  interesting 
and  more  than  half  true;  but  we -saw  that 
we  couldn't  win  out  at  the  game  unless  we 
crooked  it.  We  were  running  so  far  behind 
that  the  only  thing  which  saved  us  from  a 
dispossess  was  the  fact  that  they  couldn't 
get  a  constable  who  would  carry  the  snakes 
out  to  the  sidewalk;  but  Merrit  was  a  re 
sourceful  cuss  and  I  felt  confident  that  he 
would  figure  out  some  scheme  to  win  out. 

"  'Jim,'  says  he,  'it's  necessary  for  us  to 
give  'em  :a  sensation.  We've  tried  to  run 
this  game  as"  &  purely  moral  and  instructive 
entertainment;  birt  we  need  the  money  and 
I  reckon  we've  got  to  spring  a  cold  deck  on 
'em.  I  guess  you've  got  to  stand  for  being 
attacked  by  an  untamable,  man-eating 

python.' 

102 


THE    LIONESS    SKIRT    DANCE 

"  'You  can  count  me  out  on  that/  says  I. 
'Every  paper  in  the  city  would  write  me  up 
as  a  victim  of  the  demon  Rum/  Merritt 
looked  discouraged  for  a  minute,  but  his 
face  suddenly  lighted  up  and  I  knew  he  had 
found  a  way. 

"  'Jim,'  says  he,  'if  we  only  take  half  of 
our  usual  allowance  of  fire-water  to-night 
we  will  have  enough  cash  to  buy  some  paint. 
Now  there's  that  big  white  python ;  the  only 
specimen  ever  captured,  the  "pythonatus 
fluidum  lactalis  giganticus,"  '  says  he.  That 
was  one  trouble  with  Merritt;  he'd  get  so 
stuck  on  the  language  which  he  manufac 
tured  that  he  couldn't  leave  it  out,  even  in 
our  business  consultations,  and  it  used  up 
a  lot  of  time.  'That  python  is  the  straight 
goods,'  says  he,  'but  he  doesn't  catch  their 
eyes,  so  I'll  paint  the  blame  snake  red,  white 
and  blue  and  christen  him  the  "anacondus 
flagelum  americanibus  e  pluribus  unum," 
and  give  the  reporters  something  to  work 
on,'  says  he.  'That'll  work  up  the  snakolo- 
gists  and  set  'em  writing  in  the  papers  to 
prove  that  there  isn't  any  such  thing;  but 
103 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

we've  got  the  answer  to  that,  for  we  can 
show  'em  one  at  twenty-five  cents  per.' 

"I  never  could  stand  for  flim-flamming 
the  generous  public,  but  my  meal  ticket  was 
punched  so  full  of  holes  that  it  looked  like 
a  porous  plaster,  and  I  consented.  Merritt 
spent  most  of  the  night  decorating  that 
python,  and  in  the  morning  it  looked  like 
the  pennant  of  a  man-o'-war.  I  had  to  sit 
up  and  watch  him,  for  he  had  the  artistic 
temperament,  and  he  was  so  carried  away  by 
his  enthusiasm  that  if  I  hadn't  restrained 
him  he  would  have  put  on  the  coat-of-arms 
of  the  United  States,  eagle,  motto  and  all. 

"  'Now,'  says  he,  when  he  had  finished  and 
stepped  back  to  admire  his  work,  'if  that 
blame  snake's  own  mother  would  know  him 
if  she  met  him  on  the  street,  I'm  a  Dutch 
man.  If  this  don't  make  'em  sit  up  and  take 
notice,  then  I'll  go  to  night  school  to  learn 
the  show  business.' ' 

"How  did  the  scheme  work?"  asked  the 
Proprietor,  as  the  Press  Agent  paused  to 
make  the  grand  hailing  sign  of  distress  to 
the  waiter. 

104 


THE    LIONESS    SKIRT    DANCE 

"Work!"  he  answered.  "How  does  a 
fake  always  work  in  New  York?  Why, 
P.  T.  Uarnum  had  the  mold  for  his  petrified 
man  made  from  the  legs  of  one  man  and  the 


Grace  snarled  over  the  cubs . 

body  of  another,  and  he  didn't  even  take  the 
trouble  to  smooth  off  the  ridges  where  the 
edges  met  when  he  cast  it  in  Portland 
cement.  But  that  didn't  prevent  all  of  the 
scientific  sharps  who  inspected  it  from  certi 
fying  to  its  genuineness.  His  mermaid  was 
manufactured  from  a  codfish  skin  and  a 
105 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

stuffed  monkey;  but  the  public  stood  for 
that,  too,  and  he  made  a  fortune  out  of  'em. 
Maybe  you  can't  fool  all  of  the  people  all  of 
the  time,  but  you  can  fool  most  of  'em  most 
of  the  time;  especially  if  they  live  in  little 
old  New  York.  Of  course,  we  didn't  pull 
off  such  a  success  as  Barnum  did;  but  we 
had  no  kick  coming  when  we  counted  up  the 
receipts  for  the  next  week.  Merritt's  lec 
ture  was  a  work  of  art  and  he  manufactured 
language  at  a  rate  which  would  have  given 
Noah  Webster  nervous  prostration  when  he 
christened  the  python  'Old  Glory,'  and  told 
about  its  combining  the  venomous  qualities 
of  the  cobra  and  the  strength  of  the  boa- 
constrictor.  The  python  was  so  stuck  on 
its  new  colors  that  it  nearly  broke  its  neck 
turning  around  to  admire  itself  and  every 
thing  went  lovely.  Of  course,  there  was  the 
usual  howl  from  the  snakologists  who  knew 
it  all,  and  'Old  Subscriber,'  'Citizen,'  Tro 
Bono  Publico'  and  the  rest  of  the  bunch 
wrote  columns  to  the  newspapers,  denounc 
ing  us  as  frauds. 

"You    know    how    those    things    work; 
106 


THE    LIONESS    SKIRT    DANCE 

everybody  puts  up  an  argument  and  then 
it's  up  to  the  fellow  who  is  making  the  bluff 
to  back  it  up  with  an  offer  to  donate  a  sum 
of  money  to  some  charitable  institution  if 
he  can't  deliver  the  goods.  We  were  well 
ahead  of  the  game  as  a  result  of  the  adver 
tising  and  had  about  two  thousand  to  the 
good  and  Merritt  got  awful  chesty.  He 
had  lied  about  that  snake  so  much  that  he 
believed  in  it  himself  and  it  made  me  a  little 
nervous  one  night  when  he  offered  to  donate 
two  thousand  dollars  to  the  'Home  for  De 
crepit  Side  Show  Fakirs'  if  any  one  could 
produce  another  specimen  like  this  one, 
short  of  the  head  waters  of  the  Amazon.  I 
wasn't  scared  so  much  by  that  as  by  what  I 
feared  he  might  say,  for  I  knew  they 
couldn't  get  another  if  they  raked  the  uni 
verse  with  a  fine-tooth  comb,  and  sure 
enough,  he  was  carried  away  by  his  enthu 
siasm  and  offered  to  bet  our  entire  bank  roll 
that  the  snake  was  a  genuine  'American 
flag',  such  as  had  never  been  exhibited  in 
any  country. 

"It  was  just  our  luck  that  there  was  a 
107 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

half -loaded  tin-horn  gambler  in  the  audi 
ence  that  night ;  one  of  the  kind  that  wears 
a  yellow  diamond  and  a  checked  suit  with 
a  white  stove-pipe  hat ;  and  the  only  part  of 
the  speech  that  he  understood  was  that 
somebody  wanted  to  make  a  bet.  That 
raised  his  sporting  blood,  and  he  climbed 
up  to  the  platform  and  pulled  out  a  roll  of 
yellow  boys  that  would  choke  a  dog  and 
peeled  off  twenty  centuries. 

"  'I  don't  know  much  about  snakes  which 
bromide  won't  make  chase  themselves  back 
to  the  woods,'  says  he  as  he  plunked  'em 
down  on  the  table.  'I  ain't  got  your  gift  of 
gab,  but  money  talks  and  I've  got  this  pile 
to  say  that  you  can't  tell  the  truth  to  save 
your  neck.  Just  stack  up  your  pile  along 
side  of  that  and  then  trot  out  your  snakelet.' 
I  was  feeling  pretty  sore  on  Merritt  for 
making  such  a  bluff,  but,  of  course,  we  had 
to  make  good  and  between  us  we  covered  the 
bet.  We  had  glass  cages  full  of  snakes  all 
around  the  platform,  but  'Old  Glory'  was 
in  a  big  chest  covered  with  gilt  figures 
and  brass  chains  and  fastened  with  a  pad- 
108 


THE    LIONESS    SKIRT    DANCE 

lock.  Merritt  was  mad  clear  through  at 
having  his  veracity  questioned,  but  he  looked 
pretty  confident  as  he  stuck  the  key  in  the 
lock. 

"  'It's  a  shame  to  take  the  money,'  says  he, 
as  he  eyed  the  gambler,  'but  there's  an  old 
saying  about  the  mental  capacity  of  a  man 
that  is  speedily  separated  from  his  bank  roll, 
and  I  reckon  you  were  awray  from  home  the 
last  time  the  fool  killer  called.'  The  gam 
just  smiled  and  kept  his  eye  on  the  stakes, 
and  Merritt  gives  the  chains  a  rattle  to  wake 
up  'Old  Glory'  and  throws  back  the  lid  of 
the  chest. 

"  'Now,'  says  he,  turning  to  the  audience, 
'if  you'll  kindly  give  me  your  attention  I'll 
show  you  one  of  the  most  marvelous  mys 
teries  of  Nature.  It  was  procured  by  one 
of  our  special  agents  at  the  head  waters  of 
the  Amazon  at  tremendous  expense.  It  is 
a  unique  representative  of  the  reptilian 
family  and  the  sight  of  it  should  arouse 
pride  in  the  hearts  of  all  patriotic  Ameri 
cans  ;  for  as  he  unwinds  his  sinuous  coils  you 
will  observe  that  wrhile  his  head  and  neck 
109 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

are  blue,  the  body,  down  to  the  tip  of  the 
tail,  is  marked  with  thirteen  alternate  stripes 
of  red  and  white,  giving  this  marvelous  crea 
ture  the  appearance  of  being  wrapped  in 
that  glorious  emblem  of  liberty  which  waves 
over  the  land  of  the  brave  and  the  home  of 
the  free.'  Merritt  stops  then,  throwing  out 
his  chest  and  sticking  his  hand  into  the 
bosom  of  his  coat  to  wait  for  the  customary 
applause  from  the  gallery  to  subside;  but 
instead  of  the  usual  glad  hands  he  was 
greeted  with  a  roar  of  laughter  and  cat 
calls  and  when  he  turned  to  look  at  the 
snake  box,  there  was  'Old  Glory'  crawling 
out,  looking  ashamed  of  himself,  for  he  was 
as  white  as  the  day  he  was  born." 

"What  happened?"  asked  the  Proprietor 
as  the  Press  Agent  sighed. 

"Well,  Merritt  always  had  presence  of 
mind,  and  as  the  sport  gathered  up  our  hard 
earned  shekels  he  grabbed  me  by  the  arm 
and  hurried  me  from  the  building.  He 
knew  that  a  Bowery  audience  was  apt  to 
follow  cat-calls  with  antique  eggs  and  vege 
tables  of  last  season's  vintage,  and  five  min- 
110 


THE    LIONESS    SKIRT    DANCE 

utes  later  we  were  trying  to  drown  our 
sorrow. 

"  Mini,'  says  Merritt,  'I  made  a  big  mis 
take,  for  I  should  have  tattooed  him.  His 
beauty  was  only  skin  deep  and  the  blame 
snake  shed  his  skin.' ' 


111 


THE  ANIMAL  BAROMETER 

AND 
THE  ETERNAL  FEMININE 


THE   ANIMAL  BAROMETER 

AND 
THE  ETERNAL  FEMININE 


UNCLE  SAM  spends  a  large 
amount  of  money  to  forecast  the 
weather  twenty- four  hours  in  ad 
vance,  and  the  farmers  and  seafaring 
folk  watch  the  bulletins  no  more  eagerly 
than  do  the  owners  of  the  many  shows 
whose  harvest  time  is  the  brief  summer 
season  at  Coney  Island.  Bad  weather, 
especially  if  it  comes  on  the  first  or  last  day 
of  the  week  or  a  legal  holiday,  means  a  loss 
of  hundreds  of  dollars  to  them,  for  if  the 
skies  are  threatening,  the  holiday  makers 
seek  their  pleasures  nearer  home  and  there 
are  fewer  people  to  give  up  their  dimes  and 
quarters  under  the  seductive  wheedling  of 
the  "barkers."  Most  of  the  show  people 
look  anxiously  at  the  sky  before  retiring  for 
the  night,  but  there  is  one  of  them  who  finds 
an  absolutely  reliable  forecast  within  the 
115 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

walls  of  his  own  building.  Perhaps  the 
signs  and  portents  could  not  be  translated 
by  the  weather  clerk,  but  the  Proprietor  of 
the  trained  animal  exhibition  at  Dreamland 
has  been  all  of  his  life  the  companion  of 
his  charges,  and  has  learned  to  recognize  the 
meaning  of  unusual  behavior  or  the  shade  of 
change  in  their  voices  which  indicates  an  ap 
proaching  storm. 

There  was  not  a  cloud  to  be  seen,  and 
every  star  in  the  heavens  was  trying  to  rival 
the  brilliant  electric  lights  on  the  great 
tower  as  he  sat  at  the  cafe  table  in  front  of 
the  Arena  with  the  Stranger  and  the  Press 
Agent  after  the  night's  performance  was 
over,  but  he  gave  an  exclamation  of  disap 
pointment  as  a  half -smothered  roar  came 
from  the  throat  of  one  of  the  lions  in  the 
building. 

"Rain  to-morrow!"  he  said  as  the  grum 
bling  roar  spread  from  cage  to  cage  about 
the  great  semicircle.  His  companions 
smiled  incredulously  as  they  looked  at  the 
cloudless  sky,  but  he  repeated  his  prediction 
when  the  Stranger  read  "Fair  and  warmer 
116 


THE    ANIMAL    BAROMETER 

to-morrow"  from  one  of  the  evening  papers. 
"I  know  all  about  the  'high  and  low  pressure 
areas,'  "  he  said,  as  he  glanced  at  the  chart. 
"A  man  in  the  show  business  has  to  study 
everything  which  may  influence  the  attend 
ance,  but  the  behavior  of  my  animals  is  a 
better  barometer  for  local  conditions  than 
any  aneroid  which  the  Weather  Bureau 
owns.  In  spite  of  the  clear  sky  and  the 
official  predictions,  I  would  wager  that  we 
shall  have  a  bad  storm  within  the  next 
twenty-four  hours,  for  those  lions  have  the 
inherited  knowledge  of  hundreds  of  genera 
tions  of  jungle-bred  ancestors  whose  food 
supply  depended  largely  upon  the  weather 
conditions." 

"Do  the  other  animals  possess  the  same 
barometric  accomplishments?"  asked  the 
Stranger  skeptically,  and  the  Proprietor 
laughed  as  he  invited  him  to  come  inside  and 
judge  for  himself.  The  Arena  was  always 
an  uncanny  place  at  night,  for  in  the  dim 
light  only  the  glowing  eyes  of  the  animals 
could  be  distinguished  in  the  cages,  and  the 
snarls  and  growls  which  came  from  behind 
117 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

the  gratings  conjured  up  visions  of  what 
might  happen  if  one  of  the  animals  were 
loose  and  crouching  on  the  seats  of  the  audi 
torium  or  in  the  galleries,  waiting  for  a  meal 
of  human  flesh;  but  to-night  it  was  worse 
than  usual,  for  the  unwonted  restlessness  of 
the  animals  was  apparent  even  to  the  un 
trained  senses  of  the  Stranger. 

The  carnivora  in  captivity  retain  the 
habits  of  their  relatives  of  the  jungle  and 
are  more  alert  at  night  than  in  the  daytime, 
but  following  a  hard  day's  work  in  the  exhi 
bition  cage  they  usually  settle  down  for  a 
few  hours  of  sleep  after  receiving  their 
evening  allowance  of  meat.  Although  it 
was  long  past  their  resting  time,  not  an  eye 
was  closed,  and  hundreds  of  pairs  of  bright 
spots  were  visible  in  the  darkness  as  the 
beasts  paced  uneasily  from  end  to  end  of 
their  narrow  dens.  The  elephants,  whose 
arduous  duties  in  the  ring  and  on  the  bally 
hoo  brought  such  leg  weariness  that  they 
were  usually  glad  to  be  shackled  for  the 
night,  were  swaying  their  huge  bodies  from 
side  to  side  and  straining  at  the  stout  chains 
118 


I 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

which  fastened  them  and  the  shrill  trumpet 
ing  of  Tom,  the  largest  one,  was  echoed  and 
repeated  by  his  companions,  Roger  and 
Alice.  The  roaring  of  the  lions  and  the 
snarling  of  the  tigers  was  mocked  by  the 
hideous  laugh  of  the  hyenas,  and  the  discord 
of  the  strange  noises  was  so  disagreeable 
that  the  Stranger  was  relieved  when  they 
left  the  Arena  and  returned  to  the  compara 
tive  quiet  of  the  white-topped  table. 

"It  will  be  a  severe  storm,"  said  the  Pro 
prietor  as  the  waiter  took  their  orders. 
"Any  impending  change  makes  them  un 
easy,  but  when  every  animal  in  the  menag 
erie  is  in  the  state  of  excitement  which  you 
noticed  to-night  you  can  be  assured  that  it 
means  a  very  decided  disturbance.  It  is  a 
thing  which  animal  trainers  are  ever  watch 
ful  about,  for  most  of  the  training  is  done 
at  night,  and  it  is  not  safe  to  work  with  them 
when  they  are  in  that  frame  of  mind." 

"But  you  give  your  advertised  perform 
ances  just  the  same,"  said  the  Press  Agent. 

"That's  a  different  matter,"  answered  the 
Proprietor.  "When  the  Arena  is  lighted  up 
120 


THE   ANIMAL   BAROMETER 

and  filled  with  people,  the  attention  of  the 
animals  is  distracted  and  they  forget  their 
nervousness,  but  a  rehearsal  at  night  is  a 
lonesome  proceeding,  at  best,  and  as  the 
trainer  devotes  his  attention  to  a  single  ani 
mal  at  a  time  it  leaves  the  others  free  to 
think  up  mischief  or  to  give  way  to  their 
unreasoning  fear.  I  had  that  borne  in  upon 
me  in  a  wray  I  shall  never  forget  a  few  years 
ago  when  I  was  a  younger  hand  at  the  busi 
ness.  I  knew  a  good  deal  about  handling 
animals,  but  not  as  much  about  managing 
men  as  I  have  learned  since,  and  I  used  to 
forget  that  giving  an  order  was  not  the  same 
thing  as  seeing  that  it  was  executed.  There 
was  a  trainer  named  Barton  in  my  employ 
who  did  a  pretty  fair  act  with  a  group  of  six 
lions,  but  he  was  a  brutal  sort  of  a  chap  and 
punished  his  animals  so  severely  that  they 
went  through  their  performance  on  the 
jump  so  as  to  get  out  of  the  exhibition  cage, 
where  blows  were  more  plentiful  than  kind 
words.  His  act  was  a  winner,  all  right,  for 
he  was  absolutely  fearless  and  the  animals 
put  up  a  bluff  of  snarling  and  snapping 
121 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

which  made  it  exciting,  but  I  disliked  the 
man  so  much  that  I  was  glad  to  farm  him 
out  for  a  ten  weeks'  engagement  on  the 
vaudeville  circuit. 

"He  wasn't  a  bad-looking  chap  and  when 
he  came  back  from  his  tour  he  brought  with 
him  one  of  the  most  beautiful  women  I  have 
ever  seen.  She  was  an  Egyptian  who  had 
been  brought  to  this  country  with  a  troupe 
of  dancers  for  one  of  the  big  exhibitions,  and 
he  met  her  and  married  her  when  they  were 
performing  in  the  same  theater.  Of  course, 
I  had  absolutely  no  use  for  an  Egyptian 
dancer  with  my  show  and  I  made  the  mar 
riage  an  excuse  to  get  rid  of  Barton;  but  he 
begged  me  to  keep  him  on  the  plea  that  he 
was  teaching  her  to  do  his  act  with  the  lions. 
She  was  so  beautiful  that  I  realized  that  she 
would  be  a  great  drawing  card  if  she  devel 
oped  into  a  good  trainer,  so  I  consented  and 
signed  a  contract  with  him  for  another  year. 
I  regretted  it  when  I  saw  the  first  rehearsal, 
for  it  was  painfully  evident  that  she  went 
into  the  cage  only  because  she  was  more 
afraid  of  her  husband  than  she  was  of  the 
122 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

lions,  and  I  didn't  blame  her;  for  while  I 
might  interfere  to  prevent  ill-treatment  of 
the  lions,  which  were  my  property,  I  had  no 
authority  to  protect  her  from  his  cruelty. 
They  did  most  of  the  rehearsing  at  night, 
and  I  trusted  to  the  fear  which  Barton  had 
instilled  in  the  lions  to  keep  them  from  at 
tacking  her,  for  he  always  stood  at  the  bars 
and  they  would  cower  down  at  the  sound  of 
his  voice.  You  know  it  is  never  safe  for 
two  people  to  be  in  the  cage  with  a  group  of 
animals  at  the  same  time  unless  they  stand 
back  to  back  and  keep  in  one  place,  for  if 
they  are  moving  about  an  animal  may  run 
into  one  while  endeavoring  to  escape  from 
the  other,  and  even  the  blow  from  a  lion's 
tail  might  knock  a  man  from  his  feet  and 
then  there  would  be  trouble. 

"Poor  little  Leotta  used  to  go  into  the 
cage  and  try  to  keep  the  tell-tale  tremble  out 
of  her  voice  when  she  gave  her  commands, 
but  she  could  never  learn  to  concentrate  her 
whole  attention  on  the  animals  and  give  up 
looking  for  a  sign  of  approval  from  Barton 
out  of  the  corner  of  her  eye.  I  made  it  a 
124 


THE    ANIMAL    BAROMETER 

point  to  see  that  there  was  always  plenty 
of  assistance  near  in  case  of  accidents,  and 
gave  Barton  strict  orders  to  keep  her  out  of 
the  cage  when  the  animals  were  under  the 
influence  of  'weather  fear.'  It  was  difficult 
for  me  to  instruct  or  warn  Leotta,  for  she 
understood  English  very  little;  but  I  helped 
her  all  I  could,  and  gave  her  husband  to  un 
derstand  that  I  would  not  allow  any  ill- 
treatment. 

"In  spite  of  all  my  precautions,  I  was 
always  uneasy  when  she  was  in  the  cage,  and 
when  I  had  to  be  away  from  the  show  she 
was  constantly  in  my  mind.  I  had  to  go  to 
the  wharf  one  afternoon  to  superintend  the 
unloading  of  a  new  lot  of  animals  which  had 
been  sent  from  our  English  quarters,  and 
owing  to  delays  at  the  custom  house  it  was 
late  at  night  before  I  could  start  back  for 
the  show.  Perhaps  I  had  absorbed  some  of 
the  weather  wisdom  of  the  animals  from 
long  association  with  them,  but,  at  any  rate, 
I  was  uneasy  at  the  delays  and  as  I  whizzed 
along  in  the  trolley  I  congratulated  myself 
on  my  foresight  in  having  warned  Barton, 
125 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

as  the  thunder  heads  were  gathering  and  I 
knew  the  animals  would  have  the  jumps  and 
be  unsafe  to  work  with.  But  my  heart  sank 
as  I  drew  near  the  building  and  saw  that  it 
was  brilliantly  lighted  up,  for  that  could 
only  mean  one  thing  at  that  time  of  night — 
Leotta  must  be  rehearsing.  The  trainers 
usually  have  but  one  small  cluster  of  lights, 
but  I  had  ordered  the  electrician  to  turn  on 
all  the  switches  when  she  was  in  the  cage, 
as  I  thought  she  would  be  less  frightened 
and  the  animals  more  tractable  in  the  full 
light. 

"My  guess  was  right:  Barton,  in  disobe 
dience  of  orders,  had  made  her  go  into  the 
cage,  and  he  had  taken  advantage  of  my 
absence  to  break  our  iron-clad  rule  which 
forbids  a  trainer  to  drink.  I  saw  the  whole 
situation  as  soon  as  I  entered  the  building, 
and  I  would  have  given  the  whole  show  to 
have  the  little  woman  safely  on  the  right  side 
of  the  bars.  The  animals  in  the  dens  were 
raising  a  worse  row  than  they  did  to-night, 
and  the  lions  in  Leotta's  group  had  forgot 
ten  their  fear  of  the  trainer  in  their  greater 
126 


THE    ANIMAL    BAROMETER 

fear  of  the  approaching  storm.  They  were 
ugly,  and  Barton,  who  was  more  than  half- 
seas  over,  stood  at  the  bars  shouting  abuse 
at  his  wife  and  the  lions  and  jeering  at  her 
evident  terror.  I  saw  that  the  other  trainers 
and  keepers  appreciated  the  danger,  for 
they  were  gathered  around,  holding  iron 
bars,  Roman  candles  and  pistols;  but  they 
had  sense  enough  to  know  that  any  interfer 
ence  which  would  draw  his  attention  from 
the  cage  would  precipitate  the  trouble,  and 
none  of  them  could  make  Leotta  appreciate 
the  danger  of  her  position.  I  went  up  to 
him  quietly  and  told  him  that  I  thought  he 
had  better  call  the  rehearsal  off  for  the 
night,  intending  to  square  accounts  with 
him  as  soon  as  Leotta  was  safely  out  of  the 
cage;  but  the  drink  was  in  his  brain  and  he 
turned  on  me  and  cursed  me.  Leotta  gave 
a  scream  of  terror  as  the  brute  turned  his 
back  on  the  cage  and,  as  if  by  a  precon 
certed  plan,  every  one  of  the  six  great 
beasts  jumped  for  her. 

"Barton  knew  that  the  game  was  up,  and 
in  his  drunken  rage  he  attacked  me  and  it 
127 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

kept  my  hands  full  to  manage  him;  but  the 
others  rushed  for  the  cage,  and  while  Bona- 
vita  and  Stevenson  beat  off  the  lions  with 
the  help  of  the  keepers  on  the  outside  who 
were  firing  pistols  and  Roman  candles  and 
using  fire-extinguishers  through  the  bars, 
Bobby  Mack  picked  up  Leotta  and  carried 
her  outside.  Of  course,  that  ended  Leotta's 
career  in  the  show  business  and  finished 
Barton's  employment  with  me.  The  poor 
little  thing's  beauty  was  gone,  for  a  lion's 
claws  make  deep  cuts,  and  it  was  many  a 
day  before  she  was  able  to  leave  the  hospital. 
You  can  see  that  I  have  reason  to  be  confi 
dent  of  the  accuracy  of  the  predictions  of 
my  weather  bureau,  for  if  there  had  been  no 
thunderstorm  brewing  I  might  have  devel 
oped  a  sensational  lion  act." 

"Or  if  Leotta  had  understood  English," 
commented  the  Press  Agent,  as  he  beckoned 
to  the  waiter.  "Of  course,  it  is  sometimes  an 
advantage  to  have  performers  who  can't 
converse  with  the  audience,  but  it  is  mighty 
inconvenient  if  they  can't  understand  the 
orders  of  the  boss.  I  lost  the  chance  of  mak- 
128 


"A  howl  of  terror  from  the  platform. 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

ing  a  lot  of  money  once,  because  a  squaw 
who  was  working  for  us  couldn't  under 
stand  the  white  man's  lingo.  A  guy  named 
Merritt  and  myself  were  disappointed  about 
getting  a  concession  for  a  snake  show  at  the 
Pan-American  Exposition,  and  we  found 
ourselves  broke  in  Buffalo,  which  is  sepa 
rated  from  the  Bowery  by  about  five  hun 
dred  miles  of  very  tough  walking  when  you 
haven't  got  the  price  of  a  railway  ticket. 
Merritt  was  mad  clean  through  at  being 
thrown  down  by  the  Exposition  managers, 
but  he  was  an  inventive  genius  and  I  knew 
that  he  would  figure  out  a  way  to  raise  the 
price  of  transportation. 

"  'Jim,'  says  he  as  we  counted  up  our 
available  assets  and  found  that  they  were 
pretty  well  along  toward  a  minus  quantity, 
'it  makes  me  dead  sore  to  be  turned  down 
this  way  without  getting  a  run  for  our 
money,  and  it's  up  to  us  to  increase  our  cap 
ital  and  incidentally  give  the  bunch  that 
done  us  dirt  the  double  cross.  Get  your 
think  tank  working  and  see  what  it  will  pro 
duce.'  I  couldn't  see  a  way  out,  but  when 
130 


THE    ANIMAL    BAROMETER 

a  squaw  from  the  Tonawanda  Reservation, 
who  was  selling  trailing  arbutus,  came  up 
to  us  and  offered  us  a  nosegay,  Merritt  gives 
a  whoop  and  claps  me  on  the  shoulder. 

"  'Jim/  says  he,  'I've  got  it  and  we'll 
make  our  everlasting  fortunes!'  He  com 
menced  to  question  the  squaw,  but  all  the 
English  she  knew  was  'ten  cent  a  bunch,' 
and  he  didn't  make  much  headway  until  a 
big  buck  Injin  who  had  been  watching  her 
from  across  the  street  came  over  and  butted 
in.  It  appeared  that  he  was  her  husband, 
and  when  Merritt  stated  his  proposition  the 
buck  accepted  the  terms  without  the  for 
mality  of  consulting  the  squaw.  When  the 
Exposition  opened  we  had  a  big  tent  on  an 
open  lot  across  from  the  main  entrance, 
with  a  life-sized  picture  of  'The  Marvelous 
Mermaid'  as  big  as  a  house.  As  I  remarked, 
Merritt  was  an  inventive  genius  and  he  had 
worked  up  a  scheme  to  deceive  the  confid 
ing  public.  He  had  provided  a  platform 
and  carefully  cut  out  a  hole  so  that  the 
squaw  could  stand  on  the  ground  and  the 
edges  of  the  hole  fitted  snugly  about  her 
131 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

waist.  He  made  her  lean  forward  and  rest 
her  chin  in  her  hands  in  the  conventionally 
accepted  mermaid  position,  and  then  he 
fitted  a  fish  tail  which  lay  along  the  top  of 
the  platform,  and  it  was  so  skillfully  joined 
to  her  that  it  looked  as  if  it  grew  there.  She 
was  a  good-looking  squaw  and  she  certainly 
played  her  part  and  made  an  interesting  pic 
ture. 

"Of  course,  he  couldn't  explain  to  her 
what  he  wanted  her  to  do,  but  he  would  tell 
the  buck,  who  would  carefully  translate  and 
impress  the  instructions  upon  her  memory 
with  the  aid  of  a  bale  stick.  The  thing  which 
he  put  most  stress  upon  was  that  she  was  to 
remain  absolutely  still,  no  matter  what  hap 
pened.  I  sold  the  tickets  and  put  up  the 
spiel  on  the  front,  and  Merritt  lectured  in 
side  and  we  did  a  land-office  business.  Lots 
of  smart  guys  came  around  and  tried  to  get 
gay  with  the  mermaid,  but  she  couldn't  un 
derstand  their  joshing  and  never  cracked  a 
smile.  The  blame  tent  caught  fire  one  night 
when  it  was  filled  with  people,  and  she  had 
such  a  wholesome  recollection  of  the  bale 
132 


THE    ANIMAL    BAROMETER 

stick  that  she  kept  as  still  as  a  cigar-store  In 
dian  until  we  had  cleared  the  place  and  put 
the  fire  out. 

"  'Jim/  says  Merritt  as  he  looked  her  over 
admiringly  after  that  experience,  'there  is  a 
great  advantage  in  having  a  squaw  for  the 
top  part  of  that  there  fish.  She  can't  under 
stand  what  the  Willie  boys  say  to  her  and 
nothing  f  eazes  her.  A  white  gal  would  have 
had  hysterics  and  given  the  whole  snap 
away.'  It  gave  Merritt  a  lot  more  confi 
dence  and  we  felt  pretty  safe  after  that  ex 
perience,  and  neglected  to  have  the  buck  re 
peat  his  bale-stick  admonitions  to  her  upon 
the  necessity  of  cultivating  repose  of  man 
ner.  Everything  was  lovely  and  we  were 
turning  hundreds  of  people  away  and  mak 
ing  more  money  than  the  big  show.  One 
afternoon  we  were  playing  to  a  record  house 
and  Merritt  was  doing  himself  proud  on  his 
lecture. 

'  'Ladies  and  gentlemen,'  says  he,  'I  have 
the  honor  to  present  to  this  intelligent  audi 
ence  a  creature  which  is  commonly,  but  erro 
neously,  supposed  to  be  extinct  at  the  present 
133 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

day;  but  you  have  before  you  a  living  and 
convincing  proof  that  mermaids  still  exist. 
I  confess  that  until  I  was  able  to  obtain  this 
unique  specimen,  which  was  captured  while 
basking  in  the  sun  and  singing  a  love  song 
upon  an  iceberg  in  the  Antarctic  Ocean,  I 
shared  the  opinions  of  my  fellow  scientists 
that  the  mermaid  was  a  fabulous  or  extinct 
creature;  for  during  a  lifetime  devoted  to 
exhibiting  the  mysterious  marvels  of  nature 
to  the  American  public  it  had  never  been  my 
good  fortune  to  acquire  one.  You  will  ob 
serve  that  she  is  half  woman  and  half  fish, 
and  she  is  perfectly  helpless  when  out  of  the 
water.  She  is  unfortunately  unable  to  ex 
press  herself  in  any  known  tongue;  in  fact, 
she  has  never  uttered  a  sound  since  her  cap 
ture  and  we  fear  that  she  has  lost  her  voice, 
which — '  Just  then  he  was  interrupted  by  a 
howl  of  terror  from  the  platform,  which  was 
followed  by  a  roar  of  laughter  from  the 
audience,  and  when  he  turned  he  saw  the 
squaw  standing  up  and  trying  to  wrap  the 
fake  tail  around  a  pair  of  well-developed, 
copper-colored  legs.  Her  face  was  as  pale 
134 


THE    ANIMAL    BAROMETER 

as  a  squaw's  face  could  get  and  Merritt 
knew  the  jig  was  up.  I  was  peeking  in  the 
door,  and  when  I  saw  what  had  happened  I 
gathered  up  the  box-office  receipts  and 
faded  away.  I  met  Merritt  that  evening  in 
our  usual  saloon,  and  underneath  a  pair  of 
black  eyes  and  a  battered-up  phiz  I  could 
see  that  he  was  wearing  a  look  of  deep  dis 
gust. 

"  'Jim,'  says  he,  'this  is  what  comes  from 
pinning  your  faith  to  a  woman  and  not  ap 
preciating  the  weakness  of  the  sex.  She 
faced  the  danger  of  being  burned  alive  and 
never  turned  a  hair;  but  when  she  saw  a 
measly  little  mouse  crawl  under  the  plat 
form  she  busted  up  the  whole  show.' ' 

The  Stranger  said  good-night  and  started 
for  the  city,  but  before  he  reached  the  rail 
way  station  he  was  drenched  by  the  down 
pour  which  the  Proprietor  had  predicted. 


135 


MAKING  A  STAR    LION    AND  AN 

INTERRUPTED  TEMPERANCE 

MEETING 


MAKING  A   STAR    LION   AND  AN 

INTERRUPTED  TEMPERANCE 

MEETING 


k '^L^OU  were  not  in  this  part  of  the  coun- 
I  try  when  New  York  was  in  an  up- 
^  roar  for  two  days  over  the  escape 
of  one  of  my  lions/'  said  the  Proprietor 
to  the  Stranger  as  they  joined  the  Press 
Agent.  "I  suppose  that  ninety  per  cent, 
of  the  people  who  remember  it  think  that 
it  was  all  a  fake,  but  I  can  assure  you  that 
I  put  in  the  most  strenuous  forty-eight 
hours  of  my  career  while  he  was  loose,  and 
it  pretty  nearly  decided  me  to  give  up  the 
show  business.  It  was  my  first  experience  at 
running  an  independent  show,  and  after 
great  persuasion  I  had  induced  my  father  to 
let  me  bring  some  boxing  kangaroos,  two 
young  lions  and  Wallace,  a  fine  big  brute 
about  fifteen  years  old,  from  our  English 
establishment  to  the  States.  Wallace  was 
already  a  famous — or  infamous — lion  in 
139 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

England,  where  he  had  the  score  of  three 
trainers  to  his  credit.  He  had  received  the 
name  of  'The  Mankiller'  over  there,  and 
they  were  rather  relieved  to  have  me  get  him 
out  of  the  country. 

"His  last  victim  was  a  Frenchman,  one 
of  the  best-known  trainers  in  the  business, 
and  he  went  into  the  cage  to  subdue  Wallace 
on  a  wager.  He  won,  and  a  remarkable  per 
formance  it  was,  but  I  won't  take  the  time 
to  tell  you  about  that  now.  He  made  just 
one  little  mistake:  his  vanity  got  the  better 
of  him  when  he  turned  his  back  on  the  lion  to 
bow  to  the  audience  after  remaining  in  the 
cage  for  ten  minutes.  As  I  said,  he  won 
the  bet,  and  it  about  paid  the  funeral  ex 
penses  of  what  was  left  of  him.  After  that 
the  only  man  who  could  go  near  Wallace 
was  a  half-breed  American  Indian  from  up 
near  Cape  Cod;  Broncho  Boccacio,  he  called 
himself.  I  don't  know  what  the  other  half 
of  him  was,  and  I  don't  remember  how  he 
happened  to  be  with  our  English  show,  but 
all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  drift  into  the 
animal  training  business.  At  any  rate,  he 
140 


MAKING   A    STAR   L1OX 

was  the  only  man  who  could  do  anything 
with  Wallace,  and  that  wasn't  much.  He 
would  get  into  the  cage  and  chase  him 
around  a  hit  and  then  jump  out  quick — al- 


"  There  was  a  loose  lion  downstairs  and  a  nurse  and  two 
children  in  the  loft." 

ways  backward  after  seeing  what  happened 
to  the  Frenchman.  I  brought  him  along  to 
take  especial  charge  of  the  brute.  It  took 
a  couple  of  days  to  get  the  animals  through 
the  customs,  and  in  the  meantime  I  cast 
about  for  quarters  and  finally  rented  a  stable 
141 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

on  Eighteenth  Street  to  keep  them  in  until 
I  should  secure  an  engagement."  He  took 
a  pencil  from  his  pocket  and  drew  a  plan  on 
the  white  table  top. 

"The  stable  was  arranged  in  this  way: 
here  in  the  front  was  the  carriage  house  with 
these  narrow  stairs  at  the  side  leading  up  to 
the  loft.  On  each  side  of  the  door  was  a  win 
dow  facing  on  the  street,  and  back  of  the 
carriage  room  was  the  stable  proper — two 
stalls  and  a  loose-box.  On  one  side  of  the 
stable  was  a  saloon  and  on  the  other  a  car 
penter  shop,  so  I  didn't  expect  much  com 
plaint  from  my  neighbors,  as  my  men  pat 
ronized  one,  while  I  ordered  the  carpenter 
to  build  a  traveling  cage  for  Wallace  which 
would  slide  on  wheels,  as  our  English  cages 
were  too  heavy  to  handle  in  a  country  where 
labor  is  as  high  as  it  is  here.  I  moved  the 
lions  up  to  the  stable  to  let  them  rest  a  bit 
after  the  voyage  and  started  to  look  for  an 
engagement.  It  was  a  hard  row  to  hoe,  as 
I  was  not  known  in  this  country,  and  the  best 
I  could  do  was  a  booking  at  a  dime  museum 
for  a  month,  and  I  had  to  take  a  lowish  price 
142 


MAKING   A    STAR   LION 

at  that,  but  I  ordered  a  big  nine  sheet  poster 
and  trusted  to  luck  to  make  more  out  of 
them  later. 

"The  lions  were  in  three  cages  in  the 
stable,  and  in  one  of  the  stalls  I  had  a  trot 
ting  horse  which  had  been  purchased  for  my 
brother  in  England,  and  which  I  kept  there 
until  I  should  have  an  opportunity  to  ship  it 
to  the  other  side.  The  kangaroos  were  in 
the  loft,  and  a  couple  of  days  after  they 
were  all  settled  my  two  little  girls  came  over 
from  the  hotel  with  me  one  morning  and 
went  up  there  with  the  nurse  to  play  with 
them  while  I  went  into  the  carpenter  shop 
next  door  to  settle  for  the  new  cage,  which 
had  just  been  delivered.  Broncho,  as  soon 
as  he  struck  his  native  soil,  had  discovered 
a  camp  of  other  Indians  on  the  Bowery  and 
spent  most  of  his  time  in  their  encampment, 
leaving  a  Cockney  Englishman  in  charge  of 
the  lions  and  the  horse.  I  intended  to  wait 
until  he  arrived  before  shifting  Wallace  to 
the  new  cage,  but  the  Englishman  thought 
he  would  show  his  cleverness  and  attempted 
to  do  it  alone  without  waiting  for  us.  He 
143 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

threw  a  piece  of  meat  into  the  new  cage  and 
then  rolled  it  up  to  the  old  one,  and  when  the 
doors  were  opposite  each  other  he  opened 
them.  Of  course  Wallace  made  a  spring  for 
the  meat  in  the  new  cage,  but  he  struck  the 
edge  of  the  door,  and  as  the  Cockney  had 
neglected  to  block  the  wheels  the  cage  rolled 
away  and  the  keeper  gave  a  yell  and  bolted 
for  the  stairs.  There  was  a  loose  lion  down 
stairs — and  a  bad  one  at  that — and  the  nurse 
and  two  children  in  the  loft. 

"The  first  I  knew  of  it  was  from  the 
nurse,  who  had  grabbed  the  children  and 
stood  with  them  in  the  door  which  had  been 
used  to  pass  the  hay  in,  yelling  'Fire!'  and 
'Murder!'  but  I  knew  that  there  was  hell  to 
pay  as  soon  as  I  reached  the  street,  by  the 
sound  which  came  from  the  stable.  We  got 
a  ladder  from  the  carpenter  shop  and  hus 
tled  the  nurse  and  children  down  to  the 
street,  and  then  I  went  up  to  the  loft,  while 
the  nurse  and  the  Cockney  held  the  small 
door  from  the  stable  to  the  street,  which 
could  not  be  fastened  from  the  outside  until 
the  carpenter  spiked  some  plank  over  it. 
144 


MAKING   A    STAR    LION 

"A  look  into  the  stable  convinced  me  that 
I  did  not  want  to  go  down  the  stairs,  for 
with  one  blow  Wallace  had  converted  a  thou 
sand-dollar  trotting  horse  into  two  dollars' 
worth  of  lion  meat,  and  he  was  crouched  on 


"His  vanity  got  the  better  of  him  when  he  turned  his  back 
on  the  lion,  to  bow  to  the  audience" 

the  body,  which  he  had  dragged  from  the 
stall,  clawing  at  its  throat  and  drinking  the 
blood.  The  place  looked  like  a  shambles,  and 
the  growls  which  came  from  Wallace  as  the 
other  lions  threw  themselves  against  the  bars 
of  their  cages  in  their  efforts  to  get  out  and 
join  in  the  feast  were  redoubled  when  he 
caught  sight  of  my  head  through  the  trap- 
l  IT) 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

door.  I  slammed  it  down  and  drew  the  kan 
garoo  cage  oil  top  of  it  and  then  went  down 
to  the  street  to  see  that  the  windows  and 
doors  were  securely  boarded  up.  A  great 
crowd  was  gathering  and  I  was  afraid  that 
the  police  would  shoot  the  brute,  for  I  saw 
the  possibilities  of  an  advertisement  which 
would  more  than  pay  for  the  expensive  meal 
which  Wallace  was  making  from  the  trot 
ting  horse. 

"Just  as  I  reached  the  street,  Broncho 
strolled  up.  As  I  said,  he  was  a  queer-look 
ing  guy;  his  skin  was  copper-colored  and  he 
had  piercing  black  eyes  and  long,  fuzzy 
black  hair  which  fell  down  to  his  shoulders. 
His  nose  was  hooked  and  something  about 
his  face  always  reminded  me  of  a  bird  of 
prey.  He  was  only  a  half-breed,  but  when 
I  told  him  what  had  occurred  he  was  all  In 
dian  and  he  drew  a  long  knife  and  started 
for  the  Cockney,  who  gave  only  one  look  at 
the  expression  on  Broncho's  face  and  then 
started  for  Harlem,  touching  only  the  high 
spots  until  he  was  quite  out  of  sight.  Bron 
cho  didn't  chase  him;  he  just  looked  after 
146 


MAKING   A    STAR   LION 

him  with  a  smile  on  his  face,  glad  to  see  him 
disappear,  as  there  had  been  more  or  less  had 
blood  between  them  for  a  long  time.  Then 
he  came  to  me  and  laughed  at  the  idea  of 
danger  and  offered  to  go  into  the  stable  and 
put  Wallace  back  in  the  cage.  I  knew  that 
it  would  be  impossible  until  the  lion  had 
gorged  himself  on  horse  meat,  and  now  that 
the  damage  was  done  I  was  in  no  hurry  to 
allay  the  excitement  until  the  police  and  re 
porters  arrived.  \Ve  didn't  have  to  wait 
long,  for  the  crowd  had  grown  until  the 
street  was  blocked,  and,  of  course,  the  re 
porters  asked  more  than  a  thousand  ques 
tions.  When  I  had  worked  the  sensation  up 
pretty  well  I  consented  to  let  Broncho  take 
his  training  rod  and  go  down,  and  I  went 
with  him  carrying  a  club  and  a  pitchfork. 
Things  commenced  to  happen  right  away, 
for  Wallace  didn't  wait  for  the  call  of  time, 
but  sailed  right  into  us,  and  when  I  saw  that 
he  was  getting  the  better  of  Broncho  I  made 
a  bluff  at  going  back  to  the  carcass  of  the 
horse.  Wallace  bounded  back  to  protect  it 
and  crouched  on  it,  snarling  viciously,  but 
147 


SIDE   SHOW    STUDIES 

the  delay  gave  me  a  chance  to  help  Broncho 
up  the  stairway.  There  was  not  enough  of 
his  trousers  left  to  wad  a  gun,  and  while  I 
was  bandaging  up  a  deep  claw  wound  in  his 
thigh  that  advertisement  seemed  less  and  less 
important  to  me,  and  I  would  have  given  a 
good  deal  to  have  Wallace  safely  behind  the 
bars  of  his  cage  again.  He  was  contracted 
for  four  weeks  anyway,  and  it  takes  a  pretty 
big  sensation  to  be  remembered  for  more 
than  thirty  days  in  New  York. 

"Well,  we  fussed  about  all  day,  trying  to 
figure  out  some  way  to  get  the  beggar  back 
in  his  cage,  and  I  got  an  earache  listening  to 
advice  from  people  who  had  never  seen  a 
lion,  but  who  considered  themselves  experts. 
At  sunset  Wallace  still  held  the  fort  and  the 
streets  were  blocked  in  all  directions,  for  the 
afternoon  papers  were  out  with  extras  with 
scare-heads.  The  boards  over  the  windows 
made  the  interior  of  the  stable  so  dark  that 
no  one  could  see  into  it,  but  the  roars  which 
came  from  it  gave  the  spectators  all  the 
thrills  they  were  entitled  to  and  caused  a 
stampede  every  few  minutes.  We  tried  to 
148 


MAKING   A    STAR    LION 

drive  Wallace  into  the  cage  with  a  stream  of 
water  from  the  fire  plug,  but  he  only  shook 
his  head  and  growled  at  it,  so  we  gave  it  up 


"Broncho  was  only  a  half-breed" 

and  waited  for  daylight.  There  were  about 
forty  policemen  and  a  crowd  of  reporters 
about  the  place  all  night,  and  I  was  getting 
nervous  for  fear  some  fool  would  shoot  the 
lion,  whose  value  was  increasing  every  min- 
149 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

ute,  so  I  kept  awake  and  did  a  heap  of 
thinking. 

"I  knew  that  Wallace  would  fight  for  his 
'kill'  as  long  as  any  of  the  meat  was  left,  so 
we  rigged  up  a  tackle  to  try  and  draw  the 
carcass  out.  We  were  all  ready  at  daylight 
and  the  crowd  was  bigger  than  ever.  Say, 
if  you  want  to  count  the  idle  people  in  New 
York  just  get  up  a  free  show  at  any  hour 
of  the  day  or  night  and  they  will  all  come. 
There  must  have  been  over  a  thousand  loaf 
ing  about  the  street  all  night.  We  were  just 
getting  ready  to  make  a  try  for  the  horse 
when  the  idlers  outside  gave  a  cheer,  and  I 
saw  an  express  wagon  loaded  with  nets  and 
ropes  and  all  sorts  of  animal  catching  stuff 
drive  up.  Tody  Hamilton,  Barnum's  press 
agent,  had  caught  on  to  the  possibilities  of 
an  advertisement,  and  sent  to  the  winter 
quarters  at  Bridgeport  for  some  of  their 
animal  men  to  come  down  and  capture  a 
loose  lion.  They  supposed  it  was  in  Central 
Park,  and  when  they  found  it  was  in  a 
stable  the  job  looked  easy  to  them.  One  of 
them,  a  man  named  McDonald,  had  been 
150 


MAKING   A    STAR   LION 

with  our  English  show,  and  when  he  heard 
that  it  was  Wallace  they  were  to  tackle  his 
enthusiasm  seemed  to  melt.  He  told  the 
others  a  few  anecdotes  of  the  lion,  and  two 
of  them  wrent  to  find  the  Cockney,  I  guess, 
for  we  never  saw  them  again. 

"We  managed  to  throw  a  slip  noose 
around  the  carcass  from  the  stairs,  and  when 
we  passed  the  end  of  the  rope  out  of  the 
window  there  must  have  been  five  hundred 
men  pulling  on  it  from  the  way  that  horse's 
body  slid  across  the  floor.  The  four  of  us 
stood  around  the  trap-door  to  beat  Wallace 
back,  and  when  he  realized  that  he  was  los 
ing  his  prey  it  kept  us  busy. 

"Say,  a  dead  horse  seems  to  have  more 
legs  than  a  centipede  when  you  try  to  drag 
it  through  a  narrow  space,  and  they  all  stick 
out  in  different  directions.  Of  course,  this 
one  stuck  and  then  there  was  more  trouble, 
for  when  I  took  an  axe  to  dismember  it,  a 
cop  threatened  to  arrest  me  for  cutting  up  a 
horse  in  the  city  limits.  It  took  three  hours 
to  satisfy  the  red-tape  requirements  and  get 
a  permit  frchn  the  Board  of  Health,  and 
151 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

then  I  had  a  long,  sickening  job,  for  we  had 
to  haul  up  what  was  left  of  the  poor  beast 
in  fragments,  and  all  the  time  Wallace  was 
snapping  at  them  or  rushing  at  us.  We 
gave  him  several  nasty  cracks  over  the  snout, 
the  only  place  where  a  lion  seems  to  be  sen 
sitive  to  pain,  but  it  only  made  him  uglier 
than  ever  and  I  knew  that  there  was  a  pretty 
fight  ahead  of  us.  It  was  a  case  of  'Perdi- 
caris  alive  or  Raisouli  dead'  with  me,  for  the 
police  were  getting  impatient,  and  I  knew 
they  would  shoot  him  if  we  did  not  get  him 
caged  before  night. 

"We  drew  lots  to  see  who  should  be  the 
first  to  go  down,  and  I  think  that  McDonald 
stacked  the  straws,  for  Broncho  won — or 
lost — I  was  second,  the  other  Barnum  man 
third  and  McDonald  last ;  but  he  made  good 
after  we  got  down  there,  and  it  was  what 
the  President  would  have  called  a  'crowded 
hour.'  If  Wallace  hadn't  been  full  of  horse 
meat,  which  made  him  a  trifle  slow,  I  think 
he  would  have  chased  the  bunch  of  us  out, 
and  as  it  was  he  gave  us  all  we  wanted  to  do. 
We  used  blank  cartridges,  Rdhian  candles, 
152 


MAKING    A    STAR    LION 

training  rods  and  whips,  and  I  learned  after 
ward  that  the  crowd  outside  thought  we  were 
all  being  torn  to  pieces,  but  we  finally  con 
quered  and  it  was  a  singed  and  battered  lion 
which  jumped  back  into  the  den  and  gave 


"We  didn't 'have  any  regular  snake  charmer,  but  Aferritt 
made  himself  up  for  a  Hindoo  fakir." 

me  a  chance  to  slam  the  door.  The  noise  of 
the  clicking  lock  sounded  good  to  me,  and  I 
went  up  the  stairs  with  a  lighter  heart,  in 
spite  of  tattered  clothes  and  a  scratched  hand 
and  bruised  body.  I  knew  that  I  had  a  small 
fortune  in  the  beast,  but  I  nearly  cried  when 
153 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

I  went  into  the  saloon  to  freshen  up,  and  the 
first  thing  I  saw  was  the  poster  with  the 
announcement  that  Wallace  would  be  shown 
at  the  dime  museum.  I  knew  that  it  would 
make  the  reporters,  who  had  been  writing 
columns  of  space,  suspect  that  it  was  all  a 
fake  and  prearranged.  The  manager  was 
afraid  that  I  would  renege  on  my  contract 
after  all  the  free  advertising,  but  he  didn't 
know  me. 

"Sure  enough,  the  reporters  came  for  me 
in  a  body  while  I  was  still  tired  and  dirty 
from  the  fight  and  worn  out  with  anxiety 
and  loss  of  sleep.  They  accused  me  of  hav 
ing  put  up  a  job  on  them,  but  I  guess  the 
sight  of  my  condition  convinced  them  of  my 
sincerity,  for  only  one  paper  even  hinted  at 
any  crookedness,  and  that  proved  the  best 
advertisement  in  the  whole  business. 

"It  was  the  Sun  which  came  out  in  an 
article  about  Wallace,  saying  that  he  was 
toothless  and  decrepit  from  old  age,  and 
that  there  had  never  been  the  slightest  dan 
ger  from  him.  If  the  reporter  who  wrote  it 
had  gone  into  the  stable  with  us,  I  don't 
154 


MAKING   A    STAR    LION 

think  he  would  have  written  the  article.  I 
did  my  own  announcing  in  those  days  and  I 
always  started  off  with  the  announcement, 
'Ladies  and  gentlemen !  If  you  see  it  in  the 
Sun,  it's  so,  and  the  Sun  says  that  Wallace 
is  played  out  and  toothless  from  old  age/ 
Then  I  would  make  a  move  to  the  front  of 
the  cage,  and  Wallace,  who  had  a  special 
hatred  for  me,  would  spring  at  the  bars  and 
show  as  pretty  a  set  of  fangs  as  you  would 
wish  to  see  and  I  was  always  sure  of  a  laugh. 

"Well,  I  showed  Wallace  in  New  York 
and  other  cities  for  thirty  straight  weeks 
and  got  back  the  value  of  that  trotter  a  good 
many  times  over,"  continued  the  Proprietor 
as  he  rose  from  the  table.  "His  name  is  one 
to  conjure  with,  even  yet,  and  nearly  every 
lion  which  is  exhibited  in  the  side  shows  at 
the  county  fairs  is  billed  as  'Wallace,  the 
Untamable!'  The  original  Wallace  is  still 
alive  and  at  our  English  breeding  establish 
ment."  He  said  good-night  and  left  the 
table,  the  Press  Agent  looking  regretfully 
after  him. 

"That's  just  like  the  boss,"  he  complained 
155 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

as  he  watched  the  retreating  figure.  "He 
takes  the  center  of  the  stage  until  he  has  told 
his  story,  and  when  my  turn  comes  to  get  in 
the  limelight  he  does  the  disappearing  act. 
That  was  a  pretty  good  story,  but  talking  of 
escapes,  I  can  tell  you  about  an  escape  that 
is  worth  talking  about.  It  happened  when 
a  guy  named  Merritt  and  myself  were  run- 
ing  a  snake  show  next  to  a  camp  meeting 
down  on  the  Jersey  coast.  We  didn't  have 
any  regular  snake  charmer,  but  we  bought 
a  lot  of  wrigglers  from  a  dealer  down  on 
the  Bowery  and  Merritt  made  himself  up 
for  a  Hindoo  fakir.  He  would  get  into 
the  cage  with  them  and  those  snakes  would 
wrap  themselves  about  him  from  his  head 
to  his  toes  and  it  was  an  awe-inspiring  sight. 
He  taught  them  to  stand  up  on  their  tails 
and  dance  while  he  played  on  a  tin  whistle 
and  to  do  other  pretty  little  tricks,  but  the 
great  and  original  stunt  was  what  he  called 
the  'Interminable  Snake,'  when  one  would 
grab  the  biggest  snake's  tail  in  his  mouth, 
another  would  fasten  onto  him,  and  so  on 
until  the  whole  blame  lot  looked  like  one  big 
156 


MAKING    A    STAR    L1OX 

serpent.  Say,  those  snakes  got  so  stuck 
on  that  game  that  they  would  do  it  for 
sport  without  the  word  of  command.  When 
ever  one  started  to  move  around  the  cage 
another  would  grab  his  tail,  and  the  first 
thing  you  knew  the  whole  bunch  was  going 
around  in  a  string  and  the  sight  of  it 
was  enough  to  make  a  man  swear  off  for  a 
year. 

"We  were  doing  a  fine  business  until  a 
temperance  lecturer  set  up  a  show  a  little 
way  off,  and  that  cut  into  us  so  that  there 
was  nothing  much  doing.  The  crowd  would 
walk  right  past  the  entrance  to  our  'Highly 
Moral  and  Instructive  Exhibition,'  and  go 
on  to  listen  to  the  temperance  guy  telling 
them  about  the  evils  of  drink,  as  illustrated 
by  the  horrible  living  examples  which  he  had 
upon  the  platform.  You  see  that  was  a  free 
show,  while  ours  cost  a  quarter — and  cheap 
at  the  price. 

"One  afternoon  after  I  had  cracked  my 

voice   trying   to   draw   the   crowd   without 

landing  one  of  'em,  Merritt  comes  to  me, 

and  as  we  saw  the  crowd  pouring  in  to  the 

157 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

temperance  show,  we  looked  at  each  other 
and  shook  our  heads  in  sorrow. 

"  'Jim/  says  Merritt,  'that  guy  down 
there  has  got  you  skinned  to  death  on  the 
ballyhoo,  and  it's  up  to  you  to  go  over  there 
and  get  next  to  the  attraction  and  see  if  we 
can't  cop  it  out  for  our  show.  I  hate  to  ask 
it  of  you,'  says  he,  'knowing  your  views  on 
the  temperance  question,  but  business  is 
business  and  this  ain't  no  time  for  senti 
ment.'  It  went  against  the  grain,  but  I 
knew  it  must  be  done,  so  I  went  down  to  the 
lecture.  I  wasn't  wise  to  the  game,  but  I 
was  anxious  not  to  miss  a  trick,  so  I  went 
right  up  to  the  front,  and  the  first  thing  I 
knew  I  was  seated  on  the  mourners'  bench, 
right  under  the  platform.  As  soon  as  the 
lecturer  came  on  I  piped  him  for  a  guy  that 
used  to  pull  teeth  on  the  Bowery  with  a 
brass  band  accompaniment  and  a  gasoline 
torch,  and  I  remembered  that  at  that  time 
he  could  punish  more  booze  than  any  man 
I  ever  knew.  He  had  the  gift  of  gab  all 
right,  and  he  had  picked  up  a  couple  of 
panhandlers  for  horrible  examples  and  they 
158 


MAKING   A    STAR   LION 

looked  the  part.  If  either  one  of  them  had 
ever  drawn  a  sober  breath  in  twenty  years 
he  should  have  sued  his  face  for  libel,  and 
they  looked  as  if  they  had  been  to\ved  be 
hind  a  trolley  car  from  the  Battery  to  Fort 
George. 

"Well,  the  ex-jaw  carpenter  cut  loose  in 
good  form,  and  he  soon  had  every  one 
worked  up,  telling  the  horrible  things  which 
alcohol  did  to  your  interior  lining,  and  giv 
ing  a  description  of  the  menagerie  which  a 
man  sees  when  he  has  the  jim-jams,  which 
would  have  done  credit  to  the  boss  lecturer 
in  there."  He  pointed  with  his  thumb  to 
the  Arena,  and  the  alert  waiter,  taking  it 
for  a  signal,  refilled  the  glasses. 

"He  did  it  so  well  that  he  sort  of  had  me 
going,  and  I  was  beginning  to  think  that 
possibly  I  was  taking  a  trifle  too  much," 
continued  the  Press  Agent,  as  he  sampled 
the  fresh  drink.  "I  was  giving  the  matter 
serious  thought,  when  my  attention  was  at 
tracted  by  one  of  the  panhandlers  who  was 
nudging  his  partner. 

"  'Bill,'  says  he,  'tell  the  old  man  to  put 
159 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

on  full  steam  ahead,  for  I'm  backsliding 
and  need  encouragement.  I'm  afraid  I've 
got  'em  again.  Look  there!'  Bill  looks 
down  the  aisle  and  gets  uneasy,  too. 

"  'Hank,'  says  he,  'I've  got  'em,  likewise, 
only  that  ain't  my  usual  kind  of  snake,  coz 
he  ain't  got  no  plug  hat  with  a  red  flannel 
band  on  it ;  but  it's  me  for  the  bromide  and 
the  simple  life/ 

'  'It's  this  damn  Jersey  whiskey  that's 
changed  'em,'  answers  Bill.  'Mine  always 
has  gorillas  ridin'  'em.'  Well,  I  looked 
around  and  I  would  have  been  scared  my 
self  if  I  hadn't  recognized  our  own  bunch  of 
snakes,  each  one  of  'em  with  the  tail  of  the 
snake  in  front  of  him  in  his  mouth.  Old 
'Limber  Larry' — we  called  him  that  on  ac 
count  of  his  habit  of  going  to  sleep  curled 
up  in  a  true  lover's  knot — was  in  the  lead, 
and  behind  him  came  about  half  a  mile  of 
snakes. 

They  were  festooning  themselves  up  the 

aisle,   coming  slow,   because  there  were   a 

couple  of  them  which  could  not  move  very 

fast,  and  when  the  gait  got  too  lively  they 

160 


MAKING  A   STAR   LION 

used  to  bite  their  leaders'  tails.  Old  Larry 
was  raising  his  head  and  looking  around 
every  few  feet,  and  just  when  the  lecturer 
had  reached  the  most  thrilling  part  of  his 
'Ten  Nights  in  a  Barroom'  spiel  he  caught 
Larry's  eye  and  the  meeting  adjourned, 
sine  die,  right  there.  You  couldn't  see  him 
for  dust  as  he  broke  for  the  nearest  'speak 
easy,'  and  the  two  panhandlers  were  hang 
ing  on  to  his  coat  tails. 

"Just  then  Merritt  comes  in  looking  wor 
ried,  for  he  had  gone  to  sleep  and  let  'em  get 
away  from  him,  but  when  he  sees  'em  he 
takes  his  tin  whistle  out  of  his  pocket  and 
goes  back  to  the  show,  tooting  it  like  a 
blasted  Pied  Piper,  the  snakes  following 
along  as  meek  as  Mary's  little  lamb,  and 
most  of  the  audience  goes  with  him  at  a 
quarter  per." 

"Did  business  improve?"  asked  the 
Stranger. 

"Improve?    Why,  my  boy,  after  we  put 

that  temperance  show  out  of  business  we 

just   turned   'em   away   for  three   months. 

Not  only  did  we  do  a  good  business,  but  the 

161 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

hotel  people  put  us  on  the  free  list  at  the 
bar,  because  Merritt  used  to  take  'em  down 
in  'Interminable  Snake'  formation  for  a  dip 
in  the  ocean  every  morning,  and  the  hotel 
press  agent  wrote  it  up  as  the  daily  appear 
ance  of  the  gigantic  sea  serpent." 


162 


KALSOMINING  AN   ELEPHANT 


KALSOMINING  AN   ELEPHANT 

A  DELEGATION  from  the  National 
Association  of  Press  Agents  which 
was  holding  its  annual  meeting  in 
the  interests  of  the  Furtherance  of  Truth 
and  the  Elevation  of  the  Show  Business 
had  left  the  meeting  place  in  New  York, 
and  after  inspecting  the  various  moral  and 
entertaining  performances  at  Coney  Island 
was  gathered  about  one  of  the  white-topped 
tables  near  the  Dreamland  tower.  Colonel 
Tody  Hamilton,  prince  of  press  agents, 
master  of  a  picturesque  vocabulary,  inventor 
of  superlatives  in  the  English  language 
and  champion  of  veracity,  pointed  laugh 
ingly  toward  the  Arena,  where  the  Pro 
prietor  of  the  trained  animal  exhibition 
was  instructing  a  new  barker  how  to  make 
the  most  out  of  a  trick  of  one  of  the  ele 
phants  which  was  being  used  for  ballyhoo 
165 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

purposes  in  front  of  the  entrance  to  his 
show. 

"Listen  to  him,  gentlemen,  and  you  will 
be  convinced  that  he  is  eligible  to  mem 
bership  in  our  truth-loving  fraternity,"  he 
remarked  admiringly.  The  ungainly  pachy 
derm  was  standing  on  its  hind  legs,  trum 
peting  through  its  upraised  trunk  a  protest 
against  the  prodding  of  the  sharp  goad 
which  was  forcing  it  to  walk  backward  in 
that  absurd  position.  The  voice  of  the  Pro 
prietor,  who  was  using  a  megaphone,  came 
to  them  distinctly  as  he  invited  the  people 
to  look  at  "One  of  the  greatest  triumphs  of 
the  animal  trainer's  art;  something  which 
has  never  been  exhibited  in  any  country — 
an  elephant  WALKING  UPON  ITS  HIND  LEGS, 
BACKWARD!" 

The  speech  caught  and  held  the  attention 
of  the  crowd,  and  when  the  elephant  was 
allowed  to  rejoin  its  companions  and  the 
three  great  beasts  entered  the  building  in 
single  file,  Tom  grasping  Roger's  tail  in  his 
trunk  and  Alice  following  suit  with  the  cau 
dal  appendage  of  Tom,  a  goodly  number 
166 


KALSOMINING  AN  ELEPHANT 

stepped  up  to  the  ticket  booth  and  paid  their 
entrance  money.  The  Colonel  and  his  asso 
ciates,  whose  business  had  made  them  f  amil- 


"  Sam  Watson  confessed  the  whole  thing." 

iar  with  elephants,  smiled  at  the  credulity 
of  the  crowd,  but  acknowledged  the  Pro 
prietor's  skill  in  attracting  an  audience. 

"You  wouldn't  believe  that  I  spent  over 
seven  hundred  dollars  to  turn  that  smallest 
167 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

elephant  white  a  few  years  ago,"  said  the 
Colonel  as  the  waiter  refilled  their  glasses, 
but  his  companions  made  unanimous  pro 
testation  that  they  would  believe  any  state 
ment  he  made,  and  the  Colonel  settled  back 
comfortably  in  his  chair  to  tell  the  story 
which  they  demanded. 

"You  will  have  to  listen  to  the  story  of  the 
famous  war  of  the  white  elephants,  then," 
he  said,  good-naturedly,  "a  struggle  which 
will  remain  famous  in  the  circus  world  as 
long  as  the  big  tops  are  spread.  It  was  in 
the  good  old  days  of  fierce  competition  in 
the  business,  the  days  when  the  press  agents 
earned  every  dollar  of  their  salaries,  and 
sometimes  had  to  go  to  the  extent  of  saying 
things  in  print  which  were  not  strictly  true. 
There  was  intense  rivalry  between  the  two 
big  shows,  the  P.  T.  Barnum  and  the  Fore- 
paugh  aggregations,  and  the  bitter  feeling 
between  the  proprietors  was  transmitted  to 
the  employees.  The  advance  agents  would 
steal  each  other's  printed  matter  and  posters 
out  of  the  express  offices,  and  you  could  al 
ways  count  on  a  fight  between  the  canvas 
168 


KALSOMINING  AN  ELEPHANT 

men  whenever  the  two  shows  were  close 
enough  together.  They  would  damage  each 
other's  property,  loosen  nuts  on  the  wagons 
so  that  the  wheels  would  come  off  and  cause 
upsets,  and  do  anything  to  embarrass  the 
rival  show. 

"Each  show  tried  to  outdo  the  other  at 
every  point;  advertising,  number  of  per 
formers,  length  of  the  street  parade,  menag 
erie  collection  and  everything  which  money 
could  buy.  They  started  in  to  see  which  could 
get  the  largest  herd  of  elephants,  each  adver 
tising  the  largest  herd  in  captivity,  and  that 
competition  raised  the  price  of  elephants  all 
over  the  world  and  denuded  every  small 
zoological  park  in  Europe,  while  it  pretty 
nearly  bankrupted  the  shows  to  feed  them. 
We  had  eighty  with  the  Barnum  circus,  and 
finally  Mr.  Barnum  came  to  me  and  said 
that  he  had  purchased  a  Sacred  White  Ele 
phant  and  told  me  to  start  giving  it  pub 
licity.  Of  course,  I  didn't  know  anything 
about  that  particular  kind  of  elephant,  but 
as  I  always  like  to  be  perfectly  accurate  in 
my  statements  I  made  a  scientific  study  of 
169 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

it.  I  found  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there 
was  no  such  thing  as  a  white  elephant  known 
in  natural  history,  although  there  was  an 
occasional  absence  of  the  usual  pigment  in 
the  skins  of  some  beasts  which  give  them 
a  trifle  lighter  color,  and  that  these  animals 
were  apt  to  have  a  few  spots  on  the  body 
which  were  nearly  white,  just  as  you  some 
times  hear  of  a  negro  who  is  spotted.  When 
such  a  spot  occurs  in  the  center  of  the  fore 
head,  the  Buddhists  regard  the  beast  as 
sacred,  from  the  fact  that  the  god,  Buddha, 
is  always  depicted  as  wearing  a  jewel  in  that 
position  and  it  is  looked  upon  as  his  special 
mark  of  protection.  It  is  the  ambition  of 
every  Indian  Rajah  to  possess  one,  for  then 
he  is  billed  as  'The  Lord  of  the  Sacred 
White  Elephant,'  a  title  which  seems  to  fill 
a  long-felt  want  in  the  heart  of  an  Oriental 
potentate. 

"Well,  Barnum's  agent  had,  by  some 
hook  or  crook,  procured  one  of  these  and 
sent  it  to  London,  but  owing  to  the  lateness 
of  the  season  it  was  decided  to  leave  it  there 
in  the  Zoological  Gardens  and  get  up  a  con- 
170 


KALSOMINING  AN  ELEPHANT 

troversy  which,  in  itself,  would  be  a  good 
advertisement  for  it.  The  average  English 
man  is  very  fond  of  writing  to  the  Times  to 


"Walking  upon  its  hind  kgs,  BACKWARD." 

expose  a  fraud,  and  we  knew  that  there 
would  be  a  protest  from  those  who  would  be 
disappointed  in  the  brute's  color.  .There  are 
hundreds  of  retired  officers  who  have  served 
in  India  living  in  London,  and  they  know  all 
171 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

about  Sacred  White  Elephants,  and  time 
hangs  heavily  on  their  hands.  They  were 
only  too  anxious  to  certify  to  its  genuine 
ness,  and  they  wrote  the  peppery  kind  of 
replies  to  the  criticisms  which  might  be  ex 
pected  from  men  who  had  spent  the  best 
years  of  their  lives  under  a  hot  sun  and  lived 
upon  curries  and  red  peppers.  Of  course, 
I  saw  that  the  letters  were  copied  in  the 
home  papers,  and  before  the  circus  season 
opened  I  had  the  Great  American  Public 
watching  anxiously  for  the  reported  sailing 
of  the  Sacred  White  Elephant. 

"I  should  have  been  on  my  guard,  for  the 
Forepaugh  bunch  just  kept  sawing  wood 
and  saying  nothing,  but  whenever  I  met 
their  press  agent  he  gave  me  the  quiet  laugh. 
Our  elephant  was  finally  shipped,  and  you 
can  imagine  that  I  made  the  most  of  it  in 
the  papers.  I  had  'em  filled  up  for  two  days, 
and  then,  while  ours  was  still  in  mid-ocean, 
out  comes  Forepaugh's  announcement  that 
his  Sacred  White  Elephant  would  land  in 
New  York  the  following  day.  I  knew  it 
was  a  fake,  for  they  were  very  difficult  to 


KALSOM1NING  AN  ELEPHANT 

obtain,  but  they  stole  our  thunder,  just  the 
same.  I  managed  to  get  a  peep  at  it  while 
it  was  being  unloaded,  and  although  it  was 
only  a  dirty  yellowish  color,  I  knew  that  it 
would  make  ours  look  like  a  decided  bru 
nette  by  comparison.  They  had  worked  it 
well  and  kept  it  quiet,  but  knowing  that 
there  was  a  nigger  in  the  woodpile  and  that 
money  would  bring  him  out,  I  spent  it  like 
a  drunken  sailor  in  trying  to  get  informa 
tion. 

"Forepaugh  had  eminent  scientists  exam 
ine  the  beast  and  give  their  certificates  that 
it  was  genuine,  and  all  the  inside  informa 
tion  I  could  get  wras  that  the  elephant  had 
been  purchased  through  Cross,  the  great 
animal  dealer  in  Liverpool,  and  that  it  had 
been  kept  secluded  in  his  place  there  all  win 
ter.  Sam  Watson,  who  was  Forepaugh's 
foreign  agent,  and  his  groom,  a  man  named 
Telford,  were  the  only  people  who  had  ac 
cess  to  it,  and  they  had  spent  hours  every 
day  in  its  stall.  Cross  would  give  us  no  in 
formation  as  to  how  or  where  he  obtained 
the  elephant,  for  Forepaugh  bought  all  of 
173 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

the  animals  for  his  menagerie  through  him, 
while  we  dealt  with  his  great  rival,  Hagen- 
beck,  of  Hamburg. 

"Forepaugh  got  all  the  newspaper  space 
for  the  next  few  days,  and  when  our  ele 
phant  finally  arrived  it  looked  mighty  dark- 
colored  for  a  white  elephant  when  compared 
with  the  fake  one.  It  was  hard  to  educate 
the  people  up  to  the  significance  of  the  little 
white  spot  in  the  center  of  the  forehead,  but 
any  one  but  a  blind  man  could  see  that  Fore- 
paugh's  fake  was  lighter  in  color.  We  went 
at  it,  horse,  foot  and  artillery,  and  the  fight 
cost  the  two  shows  more  than  a  quarter  of  a 
million  dollars,  and  lasted  until  we  patched 
up  a  truce  in  St.  Louis  to  save  us  both  going 
into  bankruptcy.  I  got  some  of  Cross's  em 
ployees  to  swear  that  they  had  seen  the  ele 
phant  being  painted  in  Liverpool,  and  Fore 
paugh  replied  by  getting  a  commission  of 
scientific  sharps  from  Ann  Arbor  to  ex 
amine  the  beast  and  swear  that  the  color  was 
natural.  There  was  good  money  in  perjury 
and  scientific  opinions  those  days,  but  I 
never  let  up  for  a  minute  in  my  endeavor 
174 


KALSOMINING  AN  ELEPHANT 

to  get  at  the  truth  of  the  matter,  for  I  knew 
it  was  hanky  panky  and  I  am  a  diligent 
searcher  after  truth,  especially  when  a  rival 


"Forepaugh  had  eminent  scientists  examine  the  beast" 

has  sunk  it  to  the  bottom  of  a  well.  I  experi 
mented  with  some  of  our  elephants  until  I 
nearly  took  their  thick  hides  off,  but  I  could 
get  no  satisfactory  results  until  I  called  in 
175 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

Marchand,  the  chemist,  and  asked  him  if  he 
could  give  me  something  to  bleach  an  ele 
phant.  He  had  an  especially  strong  solution 
of  peroxide  of  hydrogen  made  up,  and  I 
selected  the  smallest  animal  out  of  our  herd 
of  eighty  to  try  it  on.  It  happened  to  be  the 
one  which  you  just  saw  working  on  the 
ballyhoo  over  there,  which  you  noticed  was 
the  ordinary  slate  color.  We  soaked  cloths 
in  the  peroxide  and  covered  the  beast  with 
them  and  then  put  blankets  on  top.  After 
they  had  been  on  for  awhile  we  washed  the 
animal  with  ammonia  and  water  and  re 
peated  the  performance  until  that  elephant 
was  as  white  as  snow. 

"Forepaugh  was  to  open  in  Philadelphia, 
so  I  shipped  our  fake  over  there,  and  when 
they  had  their  street  parade  I  followed  right 
behind  it  with  our  bleached  animal  on  a 
truck  which  was  liberally  placarded.  The 
notices  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  Fore- 
paugh's  alleged  sacred  elephant  was  simply 
painted  and  that  the  men  who  did  it  were 
bunglers  at  the  business.  'LOOK  AT  THIS 
ONE!'  read  our  largest  placard.  'WE 
176 


KALSOMINING  AN  ELEPHANT 

TELL  YOU  THAT  IT  is  A  FAKE!    So  is 

Forepaugh's,  but  he  won't  tell!  This  is  A 
BETTER  JOB  BY  A  BETTER  AR 
TIST!'  That  made  the  Forepaugh  people 
hot,  and  they  replied  with  a  new  bunch  of 
affidavits  and  expert  opinions  from  a  lot 
of  University  of  Pennsylvania  professors. 
That  couldn't  offset  our  show-up,  though, 
and  the  whole  situation  had  become  so  mixed 
that  the  public  thought  all  of  the  elephants 
were  fakes.  We  had  the  only  genuine  one 
and  the  best  fake  also,  but  they  were  a  pair 
of  white  elephants  in  every  sense  of  the 
term,  and  a  losing  proposition.  The  one 
which  we  had  bleached  would  only  keep 
white  for  about  two  weeks,  and  as  each 
treatment  cost  seven  hundred  dollars  Bar- 
num  called  me  off.  The  Forepaugh  bunch 
was  trying  to  poison  it,  and  as  the  whole 
thing  was  dead  as  a  money-making  venture 
and  white  elephants  a  drug  in  the  market, 
we  let  this  one  regain  its  natural  color. 
When  the  great  herd  was  broken  up  it  was 
sold  off,  and  I  never  saw  it  again  until  to 
night." 

177 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

"But  what  was  the  inside  history  of  the 
Forepaugh  white  elephant?"  asked  one  of 
his  companions,  and  the  Colonel  smiled  as  he 
lighted  a  fresh  cigar. 

"I  never  knew  it  until  this  year,  when  one 
night  over  a  friendly  drink  Sam  Watson, 
who  is  now  a  clown  with  the  Big  Show,  con 
fessed  the  whole  thing.  Forepaugh  is  dead 
and  the  shows  have  been  consolidated,  so 
there  is  no  further  object  in  keeping  the 
thing  quiet.  It  seems  that  Forepaugh's 
agents  found  out  that  Barnum  had  pur 
chased  the  elephant  from  an  impecunious 
Indian  Rajah;  in  fact,  he  had  purchased 
two,  the  first  one  having  died  on  its  way 
to  England.  It  was  the  misdirection  of  a 
cable  announcing  the  death  and  ordering 
another  at  any  cost  which  put  them  wise  to 
the  fact  that  Barnum  had  a  rarity.  Watson 
had  never  heard  of  a  sacred  elephant,  but  he 
started  out  to  get  one  when  he  read  that 
cablegram.  They  were  scarce  articles,  and 
Barnum  had  bought  the  only  two  which 
were  to  be  had  for  love  or  money  in  all  India, 
so  he  and  Cross  got  their  heads  together  and 


KALSOMIN1NG  AN  ELEPHANT 

started  out  to  manufacture  a  bogus  one  in 
Liverpool. 

"They  prepared  a  closed  stall,  which  was 


"  Then  Sam  and  his  groom,  Telford,  proceeded  to  get  busy." 

a  1  ways  kept  locked,  and  put  an  elephant  in 

it — just   a   common,    or   garden,   elephant. 

Then  Sam  and  his  groom,   Telford,  pro- 

179 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

ceeded  to  get  busy  with  bath  bricks,  pumice 
stone  and  a  barrel  of  white  aniline  dye.  I 
imagine  they  had  a  pretty  hard  winter's 
work  and  it  was  certainly  a  tough  period  for 
the  elephant,  because  they  had  to  scrape 
about  half  the  skin  off  the  poor  brute  before 
the  dye  would  take  hold.  They  finally  suc 
ceeded  in  getting  him  several  shades  lighter 
than  normal,  all  except  about  eighteen 
inches  at  the  end  of  the  trunk.  They  could 
do  nothing  with  that  on  account  of  the  habit 
of  the  beast,  which  was  always  mussing 
around  in  its  bedding,  searching  for  stray 
peanuts. 

"They  kept  in  touch  with  the  London 
Zoo  and  found  out  when  we  were  to  ship  the 
genuine  one,  and  then  got  their  fake  on  a 
steamer  which  would  land  it  in  New  York 
a  few  days  ahead  of  us.  Of  course,  they 
had  to  keep  working  at  it  all  the  way  over, 
but  they  kept  it  quiet  and  no  one  caught  on. 
When  the  scientific  sharps  came  to  examine 
it,  Sam  would  hoist  the  trunk  up  in  the  air 
while  he  drew  their  attention  to  the  marvel 
ous  whiteness  of  the  under  side,  and  no  one 
180 


KALSOMINING  AN  ELEPHANT 

caught  on  to  the  fact  that  the  end  of  the 
trunk  was  the  natural  color. 

"He  let  them  remove  some  bits  of  skin  for 
microscopic  examination  to  prove  that  no 
dye  was  used,  but  he  always  had  them  taken 
from  the  inner  side  of  the  foreleg  near  the 
body,  from  which  the  natural  pigment  is 
absent  in  all  elephants.  Sam  swears  that 
they  never  had  to  fix  one  of  the  experts; 
they  were  only  too  anxious  to  get  the  adver 
tisement,  and  they  were  prepared  to  swear, 
and  did  in  this  particular  case,  that  black 
was  white. 

"I  have  a  few  gray  hairs  in  my  head,  and 
most  of  them  came  during  the  strain  of  that 
fight.  The  game  isn't  what  it  used  to  be 
and  I'm  glad  that  it  isn't,  and  let  me  tell  you, 
as  a  result  of  long  experience,  that  the  worst 
thing  which  can  happen  to  a  man  is  to  have 
a  white  elephant,  fake  or  genuine,  on  his 
hands." 


181 


THE   HYPNOTIC    BEAR 

AND  THE 
SENTIMENTAL    LECTURER 


THE   HYPNOTIC    BEAR 

AND  THE 
SENTIMENTAL    LECTURER 


THE  doctor  shook  his  head  as  he 
slipped  his  ophthalmoscope  into  his 
pocket,  and  Rey,  the  trainer,  who 
had  been  holding  the  bear's  head  still  while 
the  oculist  made  the  examination,  opened 
the  door  of  the  cage  for  him.  The  bear— 
a  medium-sized  black  animal — wandered 
aimlessly  about,  stumbling  over  the  water 
pan  and  knocking  its  head  against  the  bars, 
its  eyes,  which  were  evidently  sightless, 
shining  like  two  fiery  opals  as  they  reflected 
the  electric  light. 

"I  am  sorry  to  tell  you  that  it  is  a  hopeless 
case,"  said  the  physician  to  the  Proprietor, 
who  was  standing  with  the  Stranger  in  front 
of  the  cage  watching  the  examination. 
"Both  optic  nerves  are  atrophied,  and  the 
185 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

animal  must  have  received  some  serious  in 
jury,  possibly  a  heavy  blow  on  the  fore 
head."  The  Proprietor,  who  has  the  reputa 
tion  of  being  a  "good  loser,"  thanked  him 
and  gave  some  directions  to  the  trainer 
about  the  care  of  the  animal  before  leading 
the  way  to  the  table  in  front  of  the  Arena, 
where  the  Press  Agent  was  waiting  for 
them. 

"It  is  rather  unusual  to  call  the  most 
famous  specialist  in  the  country  to  examine 
a  menagerie  animal,"  he  said,  after  the  doc 
tor  hurriedly  left  them  to  catch  the  express 
train  back  to  the  city.  "You  know  that  he 
takes  no  small  fee;  his  services  are  either 
given  for  charity  or  his  charge  is  very  high 
— and  this  visit  was  not  for  charity." 

"I  should  think  that  the  value  of  a  bear 
would  hardly  warrant  the  expense,"  an 
swered  the  Stranger  as  the  waiter  filled  the 
glasses. 

"It  wouldn't  be  for  an  ordinary  bear,  but 

I  was  willing  to  pay  anything  in  reason  to 

restore  the  sight  of  this  particular  specimen, 

so  I  sent  for  the  best-known  oculist  in  New 

186 


There  seems  to  be  a  sympathy  between  them" 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

York.  The  decision  which  he  has  just  given 
will  probably  mean  a  loss  of  thousands  of 
dollars  to  me,  but  that  is  one  of  the  risks 
which  I  have  to  assume.  Would  it  interest 
you  to  hear  a  rather  unusual  romance  of  the 
menagerie  business?"  The  Stranger  gave 
eager  assent,  and  the  Press  Agent  settled 
himself  comfortably  and  lighted  a  cigar. 

"You  have  no  idea  how  many  animals 
are  offered  to  the  owner  of  a  menagerie  and 
from  what  unusual  sources  the  offers  come," 
said  the  Proprietor.  "Travelers  in  far  coun 
tries  bring  back  strange  animals  as  pets  or 
curiosities;  people  buy  young  wild  animals 
which  get  beyond  control  when  they  mature 
and  become  veritable  white  elephants  on 
their  hands,  and  their  owners  have  to  dispose 
of  them.  I  have  had  everything  from  mon 
keys  to  lions  brought  to  me,  and  so  it  did  not 
surprise  me  when  an  artist  came  to  the  Hip 
podrome  in  Paris  last  winter  and  asked  me  if 
I  didn't  want  to  purchase  a  bear.  He 
seemed  anxious  for  me  to  see  it  immediately, 
and  at  his  earnest  solicitation  I  got  in  a  cab 
with  him  and  drove  to  his  studio,  which  was 
188 


THE    HYPNOTIC    BEAR 

situated  on  the  far  side  of  the  Seine.  The 
bear  which  you  saw  examined  to-night  was 
in  a  small  room  adjoining  the  studio,  chained 
to  a  ring  in  the  wall. 

"The  apartment  was  luxuriously  fur 
nished,  and  I  realized  that  it  was  not  lack  of 
ready  money  which  made  the  artist  so 
anxious  to  dispose  of  the  brute;  but  he 
seemed  in  a  desperate  hurry  to  have  me  take 
it  away,  and  offered  it  for  such  a  low  price 
that  I  closed  the  bargain  at  once.  I  sug 
gested  sending  one  of  my  men  for  it  in  the 
evening,  but  he  insisted  upon  my  taking  it 
with  me,  and  as  the  bear  was  evidently  as 
gentle  as  a  kitten  I  called  a  closed  cab  and 
drove  away  with  it.  The  bear  sat  comfort 
ably  on  the  seat  beside  me  and  gave  no 
trouble,  but  as  we  drove  along  I  got  to 
thinking  the  matter  over  and  the  whole  pro 
ceeding  seemed  a  little  strange.  I  had 
Mephisto,  as  the  bear  was  named,  put  in  a 
cage  well  away  from  the  other  animals — a 
sort  of  quarantine  precaution  which  I  always 
take  with  new  arrivals — and  as  there  was 
apparently  nothing  unusual  about  him  gave 
189 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

him  little  attention,  there  being  for  the  mo 
ment  no  group  of  animals  in  training  for 
which  he  would  be  available.  I  soon  noticed 
that  during  the  intermissions,  when  the 
audience  wandered  about  and  examined  the 
animals  in  the  cages,  there  was  always  a 
crowd  of  women  about  his  den;  but  I 
thought  that  it  was  because  he  was  such  an 
inveterate  beggar,  arid  had  a  habit  of  stand 
ing  at  the  bars  with  his  mouth  wide  open, 
waiting  for  some  one  to  flick  a  lump  of 
sugar  into  it. 

"The  bear  had  given  us  no  trouble,  and 
there  was  only  one  peculiar  thing  about  him : 
he  seemed  to  have  an  aversion  to  cats.  The 
bodies  of  three  of  them  had  been  found  in 
front  of  his  cage,  although  we  had  never 
seen  one  killed.  The  cats  about  a  menagerie 
instinctively  keep  out  of  harm's  way,  and  it 
puzzled  me  to  know  how  Mephisto  had  man 
aged  to  get  them  within  reach  of  his  heavy 
paw.  Jack  Bonavita,  who  fusses  about  his 
lions  at  all  hours  of  the  day  and  night, 
solved  that  mystery  and  incidentally  saved 
his  pet  cat,  Tramp,  from  an  untimely  end- 
190 


THE    HYPNOTIC    BEAR 

ing.  Tramp  has  been  with  Jack  for  years 
and  appreciates  the  folly  of  venturing 
within  reach  of  the  animals  in  the  cages,  but 
Bonavita  came  across  him  in  front  of  Me- 
phisto's  cage  in  the  middle  of  the  night.  The 


"  Tramp  was  slowly  drawing  nearer  to  the  cage." 

bear  was  absolutely  quiet,  lying  with  its  head 
on  its  paws  and  its  eyes,  which  glistened  like 
two  points  of  flame,  fixed  on  the  cat.  Tramp 
was  staring  at  it  in  turn  and  slowly  drawing 
nearer  to  the  cage,  apparently  struggling 
against  some  influence  which  was  stronger 
191 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

than  its  will.  Bonavita  watched  them  for  a 
few  minutes,  but  before  the  cat  ventured 
within  striking  distance  he  picked  it  up  and 
carried  it  away,  while  Mephisto,  growling 
with  rage,  tried  to  break  through  the  stout 
bars  and  get  at  it. 

"Two  days  before  we  were  to  sail  for 
America  I  was  sitting  at  my  desk  arranging 
some  of  the  last  details  of  shipment,  when 
the  door  burst  open  and  a  well-dressed, 
handsome  woman  rushed  in,  followed  by  the 
artist  who  had  sold  me  the  bear.  She  was 
in  a  tearing  rage  and  jabbering  excitedly  in 
a  language  which  I  did  not  understand, 
while  the  artist  was  trying  to  quiet  her.  She 
pushed  him  aside,  and  opening  a  purse 
which  was  well  stuffed  with  banknotes,  she 
asked  in  French,  which  she  spoke  with  a 
marked  foreign  accent,  for  how  much  I 
would  sell  Mephisto.  The  artist  protested, 
but  she  turned  on  him  and  gave  him  a 
tongue  lashing  of  which  I  could  guess  the 
meaning,  although  the  words  were  unintel 
ligible  to  me.  I  couldn't  quite  grasp  the 
situation,  but  the  strange  hypnotic  power 
192 


THE    HYPNOTIC    BEAR 

which  the  bear  apparently  exercised  over 
cats  had  excited  my  curiosity,  and  I  wished 
to  investigate  it  at  my  leisure,  so  I  politely 
but  positively  refused  to  name  a  price, 
and  told  her  the  animal  was  not  for  sale. 
The  artist  seemed  relieved  and  she  was 
very  much  disappointed,  but  she  quieted 
down  and  asked  me  what  I  intended  to  do 
with  the  animal.  I  told  her  that  I  was  tak 
ing  it  to  America,  where  it  would  be  put  in 
a  mixed  group  which  Rey  was  to  train,  and 
after  inquiring  when  we  were  to  sail,  they 
left  the  office. 

"I  regretted  that  I  had  not  taken  the  op 
portunity  to  find  out  something  about  the 
history  of  the  animal,  and  looked  over  the 
audience  to  try  to  locate  the  couple,  but  they 
had  left  the  building.  One  of  the  keepers 
told  me  that  she  had  screamed  when  she 
recognized  the  bear  and  called  it  by  name. 
She  was  trying  to  bribe  him  to  let  her  go 
into  the  cage  when  the  artist  came  up  and 
expostulated  with  her,  and  they  had  an 
awful  row  before  coming  to  my  office.  I 
heard  nothing  more  from  them  and  we 
193 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

shipped  the  animals  at  Havre  the  following 
day.  The  traveling  dens  were  placed  in  the 
'tween  decks,  which  is  not  a  pleasant  place 
to  be  when  the  ship  is  tossing  about,  and  I 
was  surprised  the  second  day  out  to  find  the 
woman  who  had  tried  to  purchase  Mephisto 
standing  in  front  of  his  cage  in  that  smelly 
place,  talking  to  the  bear  as  if  it  were  a  child. 
She  laughed  when  I  came  up  to  her,  and 
told  me  that  as  I  would  not  part  with  the 
bear  I  would  have  to  take  her  with  the  show. 
I,  too,  laughed,  for  I  have  a  large  family  of 
daughters,  and  I  knew  that  the  simple  trav 
eling  gown  which  she  wore  had  cost  more 
than  two  months'  salary  of  my  best  trainer, 
but  to  my  great  surprise  she  was  in  dead 
earnest,  and  asked  me  seriously  if  I  would 
not  let  her  train  a  group  of  animals." 

The  Press  Agent  grew  very  attentive,  but 
the  Proprietor  told  him  that  he  was  not 
talking  for  publication,  and  that  a  name 
which  occupied  several  pages  of  the  Alma- 
nach  de  Gotha  was  sacred,  even  from  an 
American  promoter  of  publicity. 

"And  she  does  carry  that  name  and  was 
•  194 


THE    HYPNOTIC    BEAR 

born  to  it,"  he  continued,  "but  I  can't  tell 
you  what  it  is.  She  didn't  tell  it  to  me  and 
it  was  not  on  the  passenger  list,  but  the 


"  The  bear  sat  comfortably  on  the  seat  beside  me." 

ambassador  from  a  great  European  nation 
came  on  from  Washington  to  see  her  and 
remonstrate  with  her  and  to  influence  me 
to  exclude  her  from  the  show.  I  wouldn't 
consent  to  that,  but  I  am  afraid  that  the 
195 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

accident  of  the  bear's  going  blind  will  be  the 
cause  of  my  losing  an  act  which  promised 
to  be  sensational." 

"You  have  kept  it  quiet  enough,"  said 
the  Press  Agent  with  a  trace  of  resentment 
in  his  voice.  "It  sounds  to  me  as  if  it  ought 
to  be  good  for  a  front-page  column  in  every 
New  York  paper." 

"As  I  told  you,  there  are  reasons  why  I 
can't  exploit  it,"  answered  the  Proprietor. 
"I  am  counting  upon  it  for  my  opening 
sensation  at  the  Paris  Hippodrome  next 
winter,  and  I  don't  intend  to  discount  it  be 
fore  a  Coney  Island  audience.  But  to  get 
back  to  my  experience  with  her  on  the 
steamer.  I  found  that  she  occupied  the 
most  expensive  deck  stateroom,  and  had  a 
maid  and  a  man  servant  traveling  with  her ; 
so  that  I  refused  all  of  her  renewed  offers 
for  the  bear  when  I  found  the  powerful  fas 
cination  it  had  for  her,  and  I  finally  con 
sented  to  let  her  try  the  experiment  of  work 
ing  with  a  group  of  animals.  You  know  the 
class  from  which  trainers  are  usually  re 
cruited,  and  you  can  imagine  the  interest  I 
196 


THE    HYPNOTIC    BEAR 

take  in  a  woman  who  possesses  an  absolute 
fearlessness  which  is  inherited  from  genera 
tions  of  ancestors  who  have  never  shown  the 
white  feather,  in  addition  to  education  and 
intelligence.  The  only  thing  which  puzzled 
me  was  her  motive,  and  that  I  have  not  dis 
covered  yet,  although  the  ambassador,  who 
had  received  all  sorts  of  communications 
about  her  from  his  own  government,  told  me 
her  history.  It  seems  that  she  has  always 
been  noted  for  her  eccentricity  and  her  re 
bellion  against  the  strict  laws  of  convention 
which  were  supposed  to  control  her  life,  and 
this  is  not  the  first  time  she  has  defied  them. 
She  had  commissioned  the  artist — who,  by 
the  way,  is  one  of  the  most  celebrated  men 
in  Paris — to  paint  a  portrait  of  her.  At  the 
same  time  he  was  painting  an  exhibition  pic 
ture  to  be  called  the  'Dancing  Bear,'  and 
had  purchased  Mephisto  for  a  model.  The 
picture  was  to  represent  the  bear  dancing 
on  its  hind  legs  opposite  a  woman,  to  the 
music  of  a  flageolet  played  by  a  man  bear 
leader — such  an  exhibition  as  is  commonly 
given  at  the  country  fairs  throughout  Eu- 
197 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

rope.  He  had  no  difficulty  in  getting  a  male 
model,  but  he  was  in  despair  about  the 
woman  dancer.  He  tried  model  after 
model,  and  although  they  started  in  all  right 
each  one  became  so  nervous  after  a  sitting 
or  two  that  they  refused  to  continue.  The 
bear  was  chained  to  the  wall  and  they  were 
posed  safely  out  of  reach,  but  each  of  them 
asserted  that  the  animal  was  like  a  serpent 
and  trying  to  charm  them  so  that  they  would 
come  close  enough  to  be  caught.  They  were 
all  afraid  that  they  might  yield  to  the  fasci 
nation  and  be  seriously  injured.  Tramp, 
the  cat,  would  probably  have  told  the  same 
story  if  he  had  been  able  to  talk. 

"As  a  matter  of  curiosity  the  artist  experi 
mented  with  men,  but  the  bear  appeared 
indifferent  to  them  and  the  men  made  no 
complaint.  It  only  seemed  to  exercise  this 
strange  hypnotic  power  over  women — and 
cats — for  the  artist  found  two  Persian 
felines,  which  had  been  studio  pets,  dead 
beside  it;  simply  crushed,  as  were  those 
which  were  killed  by  the  bear  at  the  Hippo 
drome.  He  mentioned  the  matter  during 
198 


THE    HYPNOTIC    BEAR 

one  of  the  sittings  for  the  portrait,  and  the 
lady,  being  curious  to  see  the  animal,  came 
to  his  studio — and  then  the  trouble  com 
menced.  She  developed  a  most  unaccount 
able  attachment  for  Mephisto,  and  he  was 
as  gentle  as  a  lamb  with  her.  They  would 
sit  facing  each  other  by  the  hour,  and  the 
artist  swore  they  talked  to  each  other  and 
understood  each  other  perfectly.  The  ani 
mal  never  attempted  to  harm  her,  but  the 
artist  became  alarmed  for  fear  there  should 
be  an  accident,  and  believing  that  there  wras 
something  uncanny  about  the  brute,  he  de 
cided  to  get  rid  of  it  and  sold  it  to  me. 

"Well,  I  watched  her  with  the  bear  on 
shipboard  and  since  we  landed,  and  I  can't 
yet  understand  her  control  over  it,  for  it 
does  not  control  her  in  any  way.  There 
seems  to  be  a  sympathy  between  them  which 
makes  them  absolutely  understand  each 
other,  and  through  it  she  understands  the 
other  caged  beasts.  The  act  which  I  had 
framed  for  her  when  I  found  that  she  was 
absolutely  in  earnest  was  a  dance  to  be  given 
in  the  midst  of  a  group  of  adult  lions.  The 
199 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

lady  is  absolutely  fearless  and  approved  the 
plan,  but  stipulated  that  she  should  select 
the  lions. 

1  'I  have  means  of  knowing  which  ones 
will  behave  and  which  are  such  idiots  that 
they  can't  be  controlled  if  anything  goes 
wrong,'  she  answered  when  I  suggested  that 
I  was  a  better  judge  of  the  dispositions  of 
the  lions.  'I  don't  intend  to  have  my  beauty 
spoiled,'  she  said,  'and  I  only  want  beasts 
which  are  intelligent.  No  one  can  trust  a 
fool.'  Perhaps  I  have  fallen  under  her  in 
fluence,  which  according  to  her  standard 
should  indicate  intelligence,  for  I  have  given 
way  at  every  point  and  her  judgment  has 
proved  correct,  for  in  rehearsing  the  act  she 
has  perfect  control  over  the  animals,  three  of 
which  I  considered  the  most  vicious  in  the 
menagerie.  I  let  her  take  them  in  fear  and 
trembling. 

"For  the  past  three  days  she  has  been 
anxious  and  uneasy  about  the  bear  and  has 
insisted  that  it  was  rapidly  going  blind.  She 
says  that  the  bear  is  her  teacher  about  things 
in  the  animal  world,  and  that  she  can  tell 
200 


THE    HYPNOTIC    BEAR 

what  it  is  thinking  about.  Its  eyes  look  per 
fectly  sound,  and  it  is  only  for  two  days  that 
we  have  noticed  anything  wrong  with  it. 
Mephisto  knew  its  way  about  its  old  cage  so 
well  that  it  gave  no  evidence  of  blindness, 
and  a  bear  is  naturally  clumsy  in  its  move 
ments,  but  when  we  moved  it  to  a  strange 
den  it  stumbled  over  everything.  I  experi 
mented  by  bringing  Tramp  in  front  of  its 
cage,  but  with  the  loss  of  sight  the  hypnotic 
power  has  apparently  deserted  it,  and  the 
cat  paid  no  attention  to  it.  Finally  I  called 
in  the  doctor  and  you  heard  him  pronounce 
his  verdict." 

"But  where  is  the  great  loss?"  asked  the 
Stranger. 

"It  is  principally  a  loss  in  prospective 
profits,"  replied  the  Proprietor  as  he  beck 
oned  to  the  waiter.  "I  had  the  new  act  all 
planned  out  for  Paris — the  lady  was  to  ap 
pear  masked  for  her  performance,  but  I 
knew  her  identity  would  be  discovered  and 
that  it  would  be  a  tremendous  sensation.  I 
don't  know  how  much  of  her  desire  to  train 
animals  is  due  to  eccentricity  and  as  a  pro- 
201 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

test  against  the  conventions  which  hedged 
in  her  former  life,  and  how  much  to  her 
strange  infatuation  for  Mephisto,  but  since 
its  blindness  has  developed  she  has  lost  in 
terest  and  I  suppose  she  will  renege  on  the 
whole  business." 

"How  do  you  account  for  it  all — her  in 
fatuation  for  the  bear  and  her  intuitive 
knowledge  of  the  dispositions  of  the  lions?" 
asked  the  Stranger. 

"I  don't  try  to  account  for  anything.  It 
is  one  of  the  thousand  things  about  animals 
and  the  million  things  about  women  which 
no  mere  man  can  understand,"  replied  the 
Proprietor  laughing.  "I  have  simply  given 
you  the  facts  of  the  situation  and  you  can 
draw  your  own  conclusions,  but  the  bear's 
blindness  upsets  my  plans  and  possibly  pre 
vents  a  sensation  in  circles  which  approach 
royalty." 

"Women  are  difficult  to  understand," 
agreed  the  Press  Agent  as  the  Proprietor 
paused  to  moisten  his  throat,  "and  a  man 
who  is  in  love  with  one  of  'em  is  just  about 
as  unaccountable  for  his  actions.  I  had  that 
202 


THE    HYPNOTIC    BEAR 

fact  engraved  upon  the  tablets  of  my  mem 
ory  when  a  guy  named  Merritt  and  myself 
were  running  a  dime  museum  in  Pittsburg. 
Merritt  was  a  good,  hard-headed  business 
man  as  a  rule  and  he  made  a  first-class  lec 
turer;  but  when  I  found  that  he  was  taking 
to  'dropping  into  poetry'  and  delivering  his 
descriptions  of  the  freaks  in  verse,  I  began 
to  get  leary  about  the  condition  of  the  con 
tents  of  his  head.  The  poetry  was  always 
extemporaneous  and  was  pretty  bad,  but  it 
amused  the  crowd  when  it  wrasn't  too  senti 
mental. 

"As  I  say,  the  poetry  was  strictly  on  the 
bum,  but  what  it  lacked  in  quality  it  made 
up  in  quantity  and  he  could  spiel  it  off  by 
the  yard.  Whenever  he  got  stuck  for  a 
rhyme  he  would  blow  the  whistle  which  he 
used  to  call  the  crowd  in  front  of  the  freak 
he  was  lecturing  about  and  move  to  the  next 
platform.  That  didn't  happen  often,  but 
whenever  we  had  a  Circassian  Beauty 
among  the  freaks  Merritt's  poetry  got  so 
sentimental  that  no  one  but  a  bride  and 
groom  could  stand  for  it — and  it  had  to  be 
203 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

early  in  the  honeymoon  at  that.  He  would 
ring  in  turtle  doves  and  azure  skies  and  all 
the  wishy-washy  things  in  natural  history 
and  mythology  and  it  was  positively  sick 
ening. 

"He  sure  had  a  soft  place  in  his  heart  for 
Circassian  Beauties,  and  as  they  were  as 
common  as  wire  tappers  on  Broadway  under 
a  reform  administration  he  was  always  get 
ting  sentimental.  We  used  to  get  a  new  lot 
of  freaks  each  week;  our  agent  in  New 
York  engaged  'em  and  sent  on  the  adver 
tising  matter  ahead,  and  when  we  looked 
over  the  list  I  could  see  Merritt's  face 
brighten  up  if  there  happened  to  be  one  of 
the  fuzzy  blondes  included  in  the  bunch. 

"Business  was  good,  in  spite  of  Merritt's 
poetry,  so  that  I  didn't  kick  when  I  saw  that 
another  one  was  coming.  It  was  a  good  as 
sortment:  a  Legless  Wonder,  The  Man 
Who  Breaks  Paving  Stones  With  His  Bare 
Fists,  a  pair  of  Siamese  Twins,  a  Leopard 
Boy  and  a  particularly  fuzzy  Circassian 
Beauty.  I  saw  Merritt's  eyes  grow  soft 
when  he  looked  at  her  photograph,  and  I 
204 


THE    HYPNOTIC   BEAR 

prayed  for  a  large  proportion  of  the  newly 
wedded  among  the  audience  that  week. 
"Well,  Merritt  starts  in  with  the  Stone 


He  made  sheep's  eyes  and  threw  a  chest" 

Breaker  and  restrains  himself  pretty  well; 
the  only  sentiment  he  got  in  was  a  fervent 
wish  that  'a  certain  blonde  beauty,  with 
eyes  of  cerulean  blue,  would  not  break  a 
205 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

heart  which  time  would  prove  tender  and 
true,'  as  ruthlessly  as  this  man  cracked 
rocks.  He  was  gradually  working  up  to 
the  blonde,  you  understand,  and  he  got 
warmer  as  he  approached.  The  next  one 
was  the  Legless  Wonder,  and  he  got  a  little 
tangled  up  in  his  comparisons  when  he 
sprung  his  poetry  about  him  and  tried  to 
ring  in  the  Circassian,  and  he  had  to  blow 
his  whistle  like  blazes  to  spare  the  blushes 
of  the  audience.  The  Siamese  Twins  gave 
him  a  good  opening  about  'bonds  eternal' 
and  the  'season  vernal'  and  he  didn't  do  a 
thing  with  it.  The  Leopard  Boy  was  a 
cinch  for  him  as  he  declaimed  that 

'  They  say  that  beauty  is  but  skin  deep. 
And  as  you  gaze  upon  this  freak, 
You  will,  I  think,  agree  with  me, 
That  though  beneath  he  fair  may  be, 
You'd  much  prefer  to  look  the  same 
As  the  fair  being  who  next  will  claim 
Our  admiration  and  attention, 
With  charms  too  numerous  to  mention. ' 

"That  made  the  Leopard  Boy  mad,  for 
you  know  that  freaks  are  as  proud  of  their 

206 


THE    HYPNOTIC    BEAR 

deformities  as  a  mother  is  of  a  new  baby, 
and  look  on  normal  people  as  objects  of 
pity.  But  Merritt  blew  his  whistle  and 
passed  on  to  the  Circassian,  and  he  made 
sheep's  eyes  and  threw  a  chest  as  his  fingers 
toyed  with  her  peroxide  locks.  Say,  it  was 
sickening  to  listen  to,  and  I  saw  that  even 
the  Stone  Breaker  was  showing  signs  of 
distress  and  couldn't  stand  much  of  it.  He 
bore  up  pretty  well  at  first,  while  Merritt 
stuck  to  describing  the  'golden  locks  and 
eyes  of  blue,'  but  when  he  got  to  the 
'sugar  is  swreet  and  so  are  you,'  stage  he 
commenced  to  get  mad  and  moved  over  to 
the  platform. 

"  'Say,  Mag,'  says  he,  'get  down  offen 
dat  staige  an'  come  awray  from  de  guy.  It 
ain't  in  our  contrac'  dat  we  has  ter  stand  for 
his  gettin'  soft  on  youse  an'  stringin'  youse 
like  dat.  Come  down,  er  I'll  climb  up  an' 
break  his  face  f er  him.' 

"  'Sure,    Mike,'    says    the    blonde,    and 

climbs  down.    That  made  Merritt  mad  and 

he  talks  real  English  without  any  poetic 

frills  for  a  minute.     He  allowed  that  he 

207 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

could  lick  any  Stone  Breaker  that  ever 
came  off  the  Bowery,  and  when  he  started 
to  prove  it  there  was  a  mix-up  which  made 
the  breaking  up  of  '  The  Society  upon  the 
Stanislaus  '  look  like  a  fist  fight  between 
two  Frenchmen.  The  walls  were  covered 
with  curiosities  from  all  over  the  world,  and 
pretty  soon  they  were  flying  through  the 
air.  Merritt  yanked  down  an  Indian  war 
club  and  started  for  the  Stone  Breaker  and 
somebody  swatted  him  over  the  head  with 
a  mummy.  The  Legless  Wonder  couldn't 
join  in,  but  he  contributed  a  two-headed 
calf  which  was  preserved  in  a  jar  of  alcohol, 
and  the  Leopard  Boy  grabbed  a  bunch  of 
Zulu  spears  and  prodded  every  one  in  reach. 
Even  the  blonde  was  something  of  a  scrap 
per  and  she  mixed  in  with  a  miscellaneous 
assortment  of  stuffed  animals  and  pre 
served  specimens,  to  say  nothing  of  some 
choice  language  which  she  hadn't  learned 
in  Circassia.  The  place  was  pretty  well 
wrecked  by  the  time  the  police  arrived  and 
separated  the  fighters. 

"  ' What's  all  this  row  about,  anyway?' 
208 


THE    HYPNOTIC    BEAR 

asks  the  sergeant  after  they  had  quieted 
things  down. 

"  'Dat  guy  was  tryin'  to  get  nex'  to  me 
wife,  de  Circassian  Beaut','  answers  the 
Stone  Breaker.  'He  spouts  bum  poetry 
about  her,  an'  I  won't  stand  fer  it,  see? 
Leave  me  go  an'  I'll  crack  his  nut  as  easy 
as  I  would  a  pavin'  stone.'  Merritt  had 
lots  of  fight  left  in  him  and  tried  to  break 
loose,  but  the  Circassian's  remarks  wilted 
him  and  I  never  knew  him  to  use  poetry 
again. 

"  'Aw,  wot's  de  use,  Mike?'  says  she. 
'Youse  can't  crack  a  ting  dat  ain't  hard, 
an'  his  sky-piece  is  made  of  mush.' ' 


209 


THE  TRAGEDY    OF    THE    TIGERS 

AND  THE 
POWER  OF  HYPNOTISM 


THE  TRAGEDY    OF    THE    TIGERS 

AND  THE 
POWER  OF  HYPNOTISM 


CHAUNCEY  DEPEW  was  at  the 
bottom  of  all  the  trouble;  not  the 
punctured  senator  from  the  state  of 
New  York,  but  his  namesake,  one  of  the 
handsomest  double-striped  royal  Bengal 
tigers  ever  captured.  Depew  was  the  cen 
tral  figure  in  the  group  which  Miller,  the 
trainer  of  tigers,  had  worked  so  hard  to  edu 
cate,  and  it  was  his  rebellion  which  made  the 
teacher's  labors  of  years  come  to  naught. 
Late  in  the  season,  after  months  spent  in 
giving  the  finishing  touches  to  their  educa 
tion  while  they  were  with  a  small  part  of  the 
show  which  was  exhibited  near  Cleveland, 
the  tigers  were  brought  to  Dreamland;  a 
group  of  eight  magnificent  beasts,  all  jungle 
bred  and  each  worthy  of  a  place  in  any  me- 
213 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

nagerie.  Perhaps  it  was  the  discomfort  of 
the  journey  in  the  small  traveling  cages, 
possibly  the  change  in  the  surroundings  and 
the  nearness  of  the  other  animals  excited 
them;  but  whatever  the  cause,  there  was 
trouble  in  the  narrow  runway  at  the  back  of 
the  dens  when  they  entered  it  to  go  to  the 
exhibition  cage  for  their  first  Coney  Island 
appearance. 

The  sound  of  their  snarling  and  growl 
ing,  the  reports  of  pistol  shots  and  the 
cracking  of  training  whips  caused  a  sensa 
tion  of  uneasiness  in  the  audience  until  the 
first  tiger  bounded  through  the  door  at  the 
back  of  the  cage,  closely  followed  by  a  half- 
dozen  others.  Dangerous  beasts  they  looked 
as  they  threw  themselves  against  the  stout 
bars,  which  rattled  from  the  impact  of  their 
great  bodies,  and  the  front  seats  of  the  audi 
torium  were  quickly  vacated  by  the  audi 
ence.  The  noise  in  the  runway  continued, 
but  the  deep  throaty  growls  which  came 
from  behind  the  dens  were  of  a  different 
quality  from  the  snarling  and  yapping 
of  the  seven  beasts  in  the  exhibition  cage, 
214 


THE  TRAGEDY  OF  THE  TIGERS 

and  when  the  last  of  the  tigers  appeared  in 
the  doorway  the  first  arrivals  made  renewed 
efforts  to  escape  through  the  bars. 

It  was   Depew;   not  the   good-natured- 
looking  great  cat  whose  "I-have-eaten-the- 


"  The  first  tiger  bounded  through  the  door." 

canary"  expression  and  smug  whiskers  had 
suggested  his  name,  but  a  jungle  tiger  who 
had  "gone  bad,"  as  the  animal  trainers  call 
it,  and  who  stood  for  a  moment  in  the  door 
way,  wrath  fully  surveying  his  frantic  com 
panions  and  selecting  a  victim.  Froth  was 
215 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

dripping  from  his  snarling  lips,  his  small 
eyes  were  blazing  like  two  points  of  flame, 
the  hair  on  his  neck  and  back  stood  up  like 
bristles,  and  his  great  tail  struck  the  door- 
casing  resounding  whacks,  as  he  lashed  it 
from  side  to  side.  Only  a  moment  he  stood 
there,  and  then  the  great  striped  body  hur 
tled  through  the  air  as  if  shot  from  a  cata 
pult,  and  covering  a  good  twenty  feet  in  the 
spring  it  landed  fair  on  Bombay,  one  of  the 
largest  tigers  in  the  group.  The  aim  was  a 
true  one  and  the  sound  of  breaking  bone 
mingled  with  a  scream  of  pain  from  his  vic 
tim,  as  Bombay  sank  under  the  weight  of 
the  blow,  his  cervical  vertebras  crushed  be 
tween  Depew's  powerful  jaws. 

The  door  had  been  closed  behind  Depew 
when  he  made  his  spring,  and  the  other 
tigers  were  chasing  madly  about  the  great 
cage,  looking  for  a  chance  to  escape.  There 
was  no  desire  to  fight  left  in  them,  but  when 
they  collided  with  each  other  they  snapped 
and  struck  with  the  instinct  of  self-preser 
vation,  their  sharp  claws  and  teeth  cutting 
gashes  in  the  sleek  striped  coats.  It  was 
216 


THE  TRAGEDY  OF  THE  TIGERS 

evident  that  all  training  had  been  forgotten, 
that  fear  of  anything  so  puny  as  man  had 
departed  from  the  minds  of  the  tigers,  and 
a  groan  went  up  from  the  audience  when 
the  door  was  opened  and  quickly  closed  be 
hind  Miller,  the  trainer,  who  stood,  whip  and 
training  rod  in  hand,  in  the  cage  with  the 
maddened  animals.  He  went  about  his 
work  as  quietly  as  if  it  were  only  an  ordinary 
performance,  his  object  being  to  return  his 
pupils  to  their  dens  before  further  damage 
was  done  and  to  try  to  make  them  recognize 
that  they  were  obeying  him. 

Depew  was  still  crouched  on  the  body  of 
his  victim,  biting  at  the  neck  and  growling 
ferociously,  his  tail  lashing  from  side  to  side. 
Miller  never  took  his  eyes  from  him  and 
kept  between  him  and  the  door  as  he  called 
the  others  by  name  and  tried  to  regain  con 
trol  of  them.  One  tiger  after  another  was 
released,  glad  of  the  opportunity  to  escape, 
as  the  door  to  the  runway  was  opened  at 
Miller's  signal,  until  only  Depew,  the  body 
of  Bombay  and  the  trainer  occupied  the 
cage. 

217 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

The  other  tigers  had  entered  into  a  gen 
eral  free  fight  in  the  runway,  but  the  noise 
of  their  bickering  was  unheeded  in  the  ex 
citement  of  the  contest  in  the  exhibition 
cage.  Depew  rose  as  Miller  cracked  his 
whip  and  approached  him,  and  made  a  rush 
which  the  trainer  met  with  his  pronged  train 
ing  rod,  driving  it  hard  between  the  widely 
opened  jaws  while  his  whip  rained  blows 
upon  the  tiger's  face.  But  he  was  only 
checked  for  a  moment,  and  under  his  fiercer 
attack  the  trainer  was  forced  to  give  ground. 
They  were  so  close  that  the  tiger  could  not 
spring,  but  he  struck  savagely  with  his  great 
forepaws  and  tried  again  and  again  to  pass 
the  guard  which  Miller  maintained  with  the 
training  rod,  using  it  as  a  fencer  uses  a  foil. 
It  was  an  unequal  contest  and  the  trainer 
realized  that  he  was  beaten;  Depew  would 
not  be  driven  from  the  cage.  The  useless 
training  whip  was  discarded  and  a  savage 
rush  from  the  tiger  was  met  by  a  pistol 
shot  in  the  face,  blank  cartridge,  of  course, 
but  effective  for  a  moment.  Five  more  shots 
followed  in  quick  succession  and  the  trainer 
218 


THE  TRAGEDY  OF  THE  TIGERS 

backed  quickly  toward  the  door,  when  his 

foot  slipped,  he  was  on  his  back,  and  Depew, 

quick  to  seize  the  advantage,  stood  over  him. 

Every  keeper  connected  with  the  show 


11  Depew  vxis  still  crouched  on  the  body  of  his  victim." 

stood  about  the  cage  with  the  Roman  can 
dles,  fire  extinguishers,  pistols  and  irons 
which  are  always  kept  in  readiness,  and  any 
or  all  of  them  would  have  willingly  entered 
to  rescue  the  man,  but  experience  has  taught 
219 


SIDE   SHOW   STUDIES 

them  that  two  cannot  work  together  in  a 
cage  with  animals.  They  were  quick  to 
act  and  a  stream  of  water  under  heavy 
pressure  from  the  fire  hose  struck  the 
tiger  in  the  side,  exploding  fireworks 
scorched  his  skin,  the  din  of  revolver  shots 
was  in  his  ears,  while  the  wads  from  the 
cartridges  stung  him,  but  he  seemed  con 
scious  only  of  the  prostrate  form  beneath 
him.  At  last  his  chance  had  come;  the 
trainer  who  for  long  months  had  made 
him  do  foolish  things  which  were  beneath 
the  dignity  of  a  royal  tiger  was  in  his  power ; 
the  revolver  which  had  so  often  checked  him 
was  emptied;  the  cruel  training  rod  was 
powerless,  for  the  hand  which  held  it  was 
pinned  to  the  floor  by  a  huge  paw.  Cat-like 
he  paused  to  glory  in  his  triumph,  loath  to 
give  the  coup  de  grace  which  would  put  his 
victim  beyond  the  reach  of  suffering,  and  he 
stood  there  growling,  the  bloody  slaver  from 
his  jaws  dripping  on  the  upturned  face  of 
the  prostrate  man. 

Animal  trainers  need  to  think  quickly  and 
to  seize  the  slightest  moment  of  hesitation  or 
220 


THE  TRAGEDY  OF  THE  TIGERS 

indecision  on  the  part  of  their  pupils  if  they 
wish  to  be  long-lived,  and  Miller,  as  he  fell, 
had  thrown  his  useless  pistol  out  of  the  cage 
and  uttered  the  one  word  "Load!"  There 
was  no  time  for  that,  but  Tudor,  seeing  that 
the  trainer  had  one  arm  free,  threw  his  own 
pistol  through  the  bars  and  it  slid  across  the 
floor  of  the  cage  straight  as  a  die  to  the  out 
stretched  hand.  It  was  a  time  when  frac 
tions  of  a  second  count  and  Depew's  hesita 
tion  robbed  him  of  his  revenge.  The  opened 
jaws  were  within  a  foot  of  the  trainer's 
throat  when  the  muzzle  of  the  pistol  went  be 
tween  them,  and  Depew,  coughing  and 
choking,  drew  back,  his  throat  scorched  by 
the  burning  powder,  his  eyes  momentarily 
blinded  by  the  stream  from  a  fire  extin 
guisher,  while  Miller  struggled  to  his  feet. 

"People  who  see  the  crowds  at  my  show 
think  that  I  must  coin  money,"  said  the  Pro 
prietor  as  he  joined  the  Press  Agent  and  the 
Stranger  after  the  performance.  "But  that 
accident  in  the  Arena  to-night  means  a  loss 
of  fifty  thousand  dollars  to  me." 

"Isn't  that  a  high  figure,  even  if  they  all 
221 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

die?"  asked  the  Stranger,  who  had  been  do 
ing  a  little  mental  arithmetic. 

"For  those  eight,  yes,  although  a  trained 
tiger  is  worth  all  sorts  of  money,  but  I  have 
purchased  twenty-eight  in  all  for  that 
group,  and  the  others  have  been  killed  one 
by  one,  fighting  among  themselves.  They 
average  over  a  thousand  apiece,  for  I  bought 
only  the  best,  and  figure  up  the  cost  of  their 
keep,  transportation  and  trainer's  salaries 
for  three  years  and  you  will  find  that  I  am 
not  far  out.  That  is  the  difficulty  of  the 
show  business  in  America,  the  public  de 
mands  so  much.  It  is  a  marvelous  thing, 
when  you  come  to  think  of  it,  to  see  one  edu 
cated  tiger;  but  if  he  wore  evening  clothes 
and  played  the  fiddle  it  wouldn't  impress  the 
Americans;  they  would  demand  a  full  or 
chestra.  I  can  give  an  act  an  hour  long  in 
Paris  with  one  high  school  horse,  but  here 
they  want  fifty  liberty  horses  in  a  bunch  and 
only  care  to  watch  them  for  ten  minutes.  I 
realized  that  from  Bonavita's  act  with  the 
lions;  no  individual  lion  did  very  much,  but 
the  fact  that  there  were  twenty-seven  of 


THE  TRAGEDY  OF  THE  TIGERS 

them  in  the  cage  drew  the  crowds.  That's 
what  made  me  start  in  with  the  tigers,  and  I 
intended  to  get  a  big  group,  but  now  I  am 
back  where  I  started  from.  I  don't  believe 
a  troupe  of  tigers  can  ever  be  trained." 


"  Depew,  coughing  and  choking,  drew  back." 

"Hagenbeck  has  them,"  ventured  the 
Stranger.  "They  seem  as  tame  as  kittens 
with  his  show." 

"That's  just  the  point,"  answered  the 
Proprietor.  "They  are  as  tame  as  kittens: 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

undersized  brutes  which  have  been  raised  in 
captivity  and  which  go  through  their  act  like 
domestic  cats.  That  isn't  what  the  public 
wants.  A  sensation — the  realization  that 
every  animal  in  the  cage  is  a  wild  animal  and 
that  he  is  liable  to  remember  it  at  any  min 
ute — is  what  holds  attention.  That  is  why  I 
always  use  jungle  animals  when  I  can  get 
them,  for,  although  they  can  be  as  well 
trained,  they  always  perform  under  protest 
and  it  makes  it  exciting.  But  the  losses 
from  fighting  among  themselves  make  it 
mighty  expensive  to  keep  up  the  big  groups 
which  the  American  public  demands." 

"That's  one  of  the  things  which  drove  me 
out  of  the  show  business,"  said  the  Press 
Agent  as  he  set  his  empty  glass  on  the  table 
and  signaled  to  the  waiter.  "A  guy  named 
Merritt  and  myself  had  a  snake  show  in 
New  York  a  few  years  ago  which  presented 
the  most  complete  collection  of  reptiles  ever 
gotten  together,  for  it  contained  specimens 
of  every  species  of  wriggler  known  to  herpe- 
tology  and  a  good  many  that  were  not  de 
scribed  in  the  books.  That  man  Merritt  was 

224: 


THE  TRAGEDY  OF  THE  TIGERS 

an  inventive  genius  and  had  the  California 
sharp,  Burbank,  beaten  a  mile  when  it  came 
to  inventing  new  species.  When  business 
was  dull  he'd  take  a  lot  of  common,  ordinary 
snakes  into  the  back  room  and  with  a  bottle 
of  peroxide  of  hydrogen  and  an  assortment 
of  aniline  dyes  he  would  bring  out  albinos 
and  spotted  and  striped  snakes  which  made 
the  scientists  open  their  eyes  and  kept  'em 
busy  inventing  new  Latin  names. 

"His  biggest  success  was  'The  Great 
Two-horned  Rhinoceros  Serpent,'  which 
made  'em  all  sit  up  for  a  month,  and  if  I 
hadn't  seen  Merritt  working  over  a  common 
boa-constrictor  with  a  pair  of  shark's  teeth 
and  a  dish  of  bird  lime  it  would  have  fooled 
me.  That  snake  was  proud  of  the  horns 
which  Merritt  glued  on  his  head,  too,  and  he 
used  to  chase  the  other  snakes  around  the 
cage  and  butt  'em  like  a  giddy  billy-goat. 
But  in  spite  of  all  his  ingenuity  in  originat 
ing  new  varieties,  business  was  dropping 
off,  for  the  public  demanded  quantity  as 
well  as  quality  and  we  had  skinned  the  local 
snake  market  clean.  We  were  sitting  in  the 
225 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

office  one  day,  figuring  on  where  we  could 
get  additions  to  our  collection,  when  a  stout, 
red-faced  little  man  who  had  'sea  captain' 
written  all  over  him  came  in  and  asked  if  we 
wanted  any  more  snakes.  Merritt  allowed 
that  we  did  if  the  snakes  and  the  prices  were 
right  and  asked  where  we  could  inspect 
them. 

'Well,  I've  got  one  that  I  brought  from 
Borneo  and  he's  on  a  ship  down  in  the  har 
bor,'  says  the  Captain.  'We  won't  argue 
none  about  the  price,  for  if  you'll  come  down 
and  take  him  away  you  can  have  him  for 
nothing.'  That  made  Merritt  a  little  sus 
picious  and  he  asked  the  Captain  if  it  were 
his  ship. 

6  'I  reckoned  it  was  until  two  days  ago, 
when  that  blame  snake  broke  loose,'  he  an 
swered  irritably.  'Since  then  he  seems  to 
own  it  and  not  a  man  jack  of  the  crew  will 
go  below.  I've  tried  to  shoot  him,  but  the 
beggar's  too  quick,  and  I  want  to  discharge 
my  cargo,  so  if  you  ain't  afraid  to  tackle 
him,  come  on.' 

"  'Me  afraid!    Me?'  says  Merritt  throw- 
226 


THE  TRAGEDY  OF  THE  TIGERS 

ing  out  a  chest.  'Why,  man  alive,  I'm  the 
only  living  snake  charmer  who  ever  dared 
handle  the  dangerous  Two-horned  Rhinoce 
ros  Serpent,  and  do  you  think  I'd  weaken 
before  a  common  Borneo  python?' 

"  'I  dunno  whether  you  will  or  not  until 
I  see  you  try,'  says  the  Captain.  'I've  han 
dled  a  Malay  crew,  which  is  worse  than 
serpents,  and  I've  mixed  it  up  with  most  of 
the  scum  that  sails  the  seven  seas,  but  this 
blame  snake's  got  me  bluffed  all  right. 
He's  three  fathom  long,  as  big  around  as  the 
mainmast,  and  made  up  principally  of 
muscle  and  wickedness.' 

"  'Just  watch  me.  Watch  me !'  says  Mer- 
ritt.  'I'll  use  my  wonderful  hypnotic  power 
and  you'll  see  the  serpent  crawl  into  the  bag 
at  my  command,  to  be  easily  transported  to 
this  moral  and  elevating  show  for  exhibition 
as  an  example  of  the  power  of  mind  over 
matter.' 

"  'All  right,  professor,'  says  the  Captain. 

'But  if  you'll  take  my  advice  you'll  stow 

those  shore-going  togs  and  get  into  working 

rig  before  you  tackle  him.'     Merritt  was 

227 


SIDE    SHOW    STUDIES 

arrayed  in  all  his  finery,  and  if  you'd  ever 
seen  him  you'd  know  that  that  meant  a  lot, 
for  when  he  was  flush  he  could  make  Solo 
mon  in  all  his  glory,  or  any  other  swell 
dresser  look  like  a  dirty  deuce  in  a  new  deck. 
He  had  on  a  light  suit  with  checks  which 
were  so  loud  they  drowned  the  music  of  the 
orchestra,  and  a  shirt  which  would  make  a 
summer  sunset  hide  its  head  in  disappoint 
ment.  Patent  leather  shoes  with  yellow  tops 
and  a  white  plug  hat  with  a  black  band 
around  it  completed  his  costume,  except  for 
a  few  specimens  of  yellow  diamonds  which 
adorned  his  shirt  front  and  cuffs. 

"Merritt  snorted  contemptuously  at  the 
suggestion  and  we  started  for  the  ship. 
When  we  got  on  board  he  made  a  little 
speech  before  he  went  into  the  hold,  telling 
the  sailors  about  his  wonderful  hypnotic 
power  and  how  he  would  exercise  it  to  charm 
the  serpent  which  was  preventing  their 
worthy  Captain  from  reaping  the  rewards 
of  his  arduous  toil  and  his  hardihood  in  hav 
ing  braved  the  perils  of  the  vasty  deep.  The 
sailors  listened  and  grinned,  but  the  Captain 
228 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

was  getting  impatient  and  suggested  that 
Merritt  get  the  snake  first  and  give  his  spiel 
afterward,  so  Merritt  went  down  the  ladder 
with  the  bag  over  his  shoulder  and  we  all 
rubbered  down  the  hatchway  to  watch  the 
capture. 

"I  knew  what  he  would  try  to  do,  for  I 
had  seen  him  work  it  before.  The  way  to 
get  one  of  those  big  snakes  is  to  cover  his 
head  with  a  bag,  and  then  he'll  crawl  in  him 
self  to  get  into  the  dark,  which  is  a  serpent's 
idea  of  safety.  The  more  you  prod  'em  the 
faster  they'll  crawl,  and  that  was  the  time 
when  Merritt  always  made  passes  with  his 
hands  and  muttered  gibberish  to  impress  the 
spectators.  He  started  in  according  to  pro 
gramme  as  soon  as  he  located  the  snake, 
which  was  half  hidden  among  a  lot  of  casks. 
The  snake  carried  out  his  part  and  struck  at 
the  opened  bag  which  Merritt  held  out  to 
him,  but  instead  of  sticking  his  head  in  he 
grabbed  it  with  his  teeth,  and  as  Merritt  held 
on  he  drew  him  back  among  the  barrels  and 
there  was  a  pretty  fight.  Merritt  was  quick 
enough  to  get  a  strangle  hold  around  the 
230 


THE  TRAGEDY  OF  THE  TIGERS 

snake's  neck  and  then  it  kept  him  busy  keep 
ing  out  of  his  coils.  The  Captain  hadn't  lied 
much  about  the  size  of  the  python — it  was 
about  thirty  feet  long — and  Merritt  didn't 
have  time  to  use  any  incantation,  although 
considerable  forcible  language  floated  up 
through  the  hatchway.  They  wiped  the 
deck  with  each  other  for  about  twenty  min 
utes,  and  Merritt  had  been  bumped  against 
pretty  nearly  every  cask  in  the  hold  before 
he  finally  succeeded  in  drawing  the  sack  over 
the  snake's  head.  Then  it  was  easy,  and  in 
spite  of  his  lack  of  breath  the  showman  in 
Merritt  asserted  itself.  He  put  the  sack  on 
the  floor,  and  with  one  foot  on  the  neck  of 
it  he  prodded  the  snake's  body  with  the  other 
while  he  made  mysterious  passes  with  his 
hands  until  the  tip  of  the  tail  disappeared. 
When  the  sack  was  securely  tied  up  the 
python  was  hoisted  on  deck,  and  Merritt,  his 
clothing  torn  and  soiled  with  pitch  and  the 
miscellaneous  oily  and  sticky  things  which 
made  up  the  ship's  cargo,  climbed  up  after  it. 
1  'Did  you  see  me?'  he  asked  proudly, 
throwing  out  his  chest.  'Did  you  observe 
231 


SIDE    SHOW   STUDIES 

the  wonderful  hypnotic  power  which  over 
came  the  prowess  of  the  serpent?' 

"  'Yes,  I  noticed  it,  along  toward  the 
finish,'  answered  the  Captain,  grinning 
skeptically  as  he  sized  up  Merritt's  dilapi 
dated  apparel.  'But  say,  professor,  what  I 
can't  understand  is  why  you  didn't  get  it 
working  sooner.' ' 


THE    END 


232 


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APR   241933 


LD  21-50m-l,'33 


YB  33415 


671526 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


